putin essay on ukraine full text

On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians

Source: original from Kremlin Archived

ON THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF RUSSIANS AND UKRAINIANS

By Vladimir Putin

During the recent Direct Line, when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. It is what I have said on numerous occasions and what I firmly believe. I therefore feel it necessary to explain my position in detail and share my assessments of today’s situation.

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy. These are, first and foremost, the consequences of our own mistakes made at different periods of time. But these are also the result of deliberate efforts by those forces that have always sought to undermine our unity. The formula they apply has been known from time immemorial – divide and rule. There is nothing new here. Hence the attempts to play on the “national question” and sow discord among people, the overarching goal being to divide and then to pit the parts of a single people against one another.

To have a better understanding of the present and look into the future, we need to turn to history. Certainly, it is impossible to cover in this article all the developments that have taken place over more than a thousand years. But I will focus on the key, pivotal moments that are important for us to remember, both in Russia and Ukraine.

Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory – from Ladoga, Novgorod, and Pskov to Kiev and Chernigov – were bound together by one language (which we now refer to as Old Russian), economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and – after the baptism of Rus – the Orthodox faith. The spiritual choice made by St. Vladimir, who was both Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Kiev, still largely determines our affinity today.

The throne of Kiev held a dominant position in Ancient Rus. This had been the custom since the late 9th century. The Tale of Bygone Years captured for posterity the words of Oleg the Prophet about Kiev, “Let it be the mother of all Russian cities.“

Later, like other European states of that time, Ancient Rus faced a decline of central rule and fragmentation. At the same time, both the nobility and the common people perceived Rus as a common territory, as their homeland.

The fragmentation intensified after Batu Khan’s devastating invasion, which ravaged many cities, including Kiev. The northeastern part of Rus fell under the control of the Golden Horde but retained limited sovereignty. The southern and western Russian lands largely became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which – most significantly – was referred to in historical records as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia.

Members of the princely and “boyar” clans would change service from one prince to another, feuding with each other but also making friendships and alliances. Voivode Bobrok of Volyn and the sons of Grand Duke of Lithuania Algirdas – Andrey of Polotsk and Dmitry of Bryansk – fought next to Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow on the Kulikovo field. At the same time, Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila – son of the Princess of Tver – led his troops to join with Mamai. These are all pages of our shared history, reflecting its complex and multi-dimensional nature.

Most importantly, people both in the western and eastern Russian lands spoke the same language. Their faith was Orthodox. Up to the middle of the 15th century, the unified church government remained in place.

At a new stage of historical development, both Lithuanian Rus and Moscow Rus could have become the points of attraction and consolidation of the territories of Ancient Rus. It so happened that Moscow became the center of reunification, continuing the tradition of ancient Russian statehood. Moscow princes – the descendants of Prince Alexander Nevsky – cast off the foreign yoke and began gathering the Russian lands.

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, other processes were unfolding. In the 14th century, Lithuania’s ruling elite converted to Catholicism. In the 16th century, it signed the Union of Lublin with the Kingdom of Poland to form the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish Catholic nobility received considerable land holdings and privileges in the territory of Rus. In accordance with the 1596 Union of Brest, part of the western Russian Orthodox clergy submitted to the authority of the Pope. The process of Polonization and Latinization began, ousting Orthodoxy.

As a consequence, in the 16–17th centuries, the liberation movement of the Orthodox population was gaining strength in the Dnieper region. The events during the times of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky became a turning point. His supporters struggled for autonomy from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In its 1649 appeal to the king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Zaporizhian Host demanded that the rights of the Russian Orthodox population be respected, that the voivode of Kiev be Russian and of Greek faith, and that the persecution of the churches of God be stopped. But the Cossacks were not heard.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky then made appeals to Moscow, which were considered by the Zemsky Sobor. On 1 October 1653, members of the supreme representative body of the Russian state decided to support their brothers in faith and take them under patronage. In January 1654, the Pereyaslav Council confirmed that decision. Subsequently, the ambassadors of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Moscow visited dozens of cities, including Kiev, whose populations swore allegiance to the Russian tsar. Incidentally, nothing of the kind happened at the conclusion of the Union of Lublin.

In a letter to Moscow in 1654, Bohdan Khmelnytsky thanked Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich for taking “the whole Zaporizhian Host and the whole Russian Orthodox world under the strong and high hand of the Tsar”. It means that, in their appeals to both the Polish king and the Russian tsar, the Cossacks referred to and defined themselves as Russian Orthodox people.

Over the course of the protracted war between the Russian state and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, some of the hetmans, successors of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, would “detach themselves” from Moscow or seek support from Sweden, Poland, or Turkey. But, again, for the people, that was a war of liberation. It ended with the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667. The final outcome was sealed by the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1686. The Russian state incorporated the city of Kiev and the lands on the left bank of the Dnieper River, including Poltava region, Chernigov region, and Zaporozhye. Their inhabitants were reunited with the main part of the Russian Orthodox people. These territories were referred to as “Malorossia” (Little Russia).

The name “Ukraine” was used more often in the meaning of the Old Russian word “okraina” (periphery), which is found in written sources from the 12th century, referring to various border territories. And the word “Ukrainian”, judging by archival documents, originally referred to frontier guards who protected the external borders.

On the right bank, which remained under the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the old orders were restored, and social and religious oppression intensified. On the contrary, the lands on the left bank, taken under the protection of the unified state, saw rapid development. People from the other bank of the Dnieper moved here en masse. They sought support from people who spoke the same language and had the same faith.

During the Great Northern War with Sweden, the people in Malorossia were not faced with a choice of whom to side with. Only a small portion of the Cossacks supported Mazepa’s rebellion. People of all orders and degrees considered themselves Russian and Orthodox.

Cossack senior officers belonging to the nobility would reach the heights of political, diplomatic, and military careers in Russia. Graduates of Kiev-Mohyla Academy played a leading role in church life. This was also the case during the Hetmanate – an essentially autonomous state formation with a special internal structure – and later in the Russian Empire. Malorussians in many ways helped build a big common country – its statehood, culture, and science. They participated in the exploration and development of the Urals, Siberia, the Caucasus, and the Far East. Incidentally, during the Soviet period, natives of Ukraine held major, including the highest, posts in the leadership of the unified state. Suffice it to say that Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, whose party biography was most closely associated with Ukraine, led the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) for almost 30 years.

In the second half of the 18th century, following the wars with the Ottoman Empire, Russia incorporated Crimea and the lands of the Black Sea region, which became known as Novorossiya. They were populated by people from all of the Russian provinces. After the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire regained the western Old Russian lands, with the exception of Galicia and Transcarpathia, which became part of the Austrian – and later Austro-Hungarian – Empire.

The incorporation of the western Russian lands into the single state was not merely the result of political and diplomatic decisions. It was underlain by the common faith, shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – language similarity. Thus, as early as the beginning of the 17th century, one of the hierarchs of the Uniate Church, Joseph Rutsky, communicated to Rome that people in Moscovia called Russians from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth their brothers, that their written language was absolutely identical, and differences in the vernacular were insignificant. He drew an analogy with the residents of Rome and Bergamo. These are, as we know, the center and the north of modern Italy.

Many centuries of fragmentation and living within different states naturally brought about regional language peculiarities, resulting in the emergence of dialects. The vernacular enriched the literary language. Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Grigory Skovoroda, and Taras Shevchenko played a huge role here. Their works are our common literary and cultural heritage. Taras Shevchenko wrote poetry in the Ukrainian language, and prose mainly in Russian. The books of Nikolay Gogol, a Russian patriot and native of Poltavshchyna, are written in Russian, bristling with Malorussian folk sayings and motifs. How can this heritage be divided between Russia and Ukraine? And why do it?

The south-western lands of the Russian Empire, Malorussia and Novorossiya, and the Crimea developed as ethnically and religiously diverse entities. Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Krymchaks, Bulgarians, Poles, Serbs, Germans, and other peoples lived here. They all preserved their faith, traditions, and customs.

I am not going to idealise anything. We do know there were the Valuev Circular of 1863 an then the Ems Ukaz of 1876, which restricted the publication and importation of religious and socio-political literature in the Ukrainian language. But it is important to be mindful of the historical context. These decisions were taken against the backdrop of dramatic events in Poland and the desire of the leaders of the Polish national movement to exploit the “Ukrainian issue” to their own advantage. I should add that works of fiction, books of Ukrainian poetry and folk songs continued to be published. There is objective evidence that the Russian Empire was witnessing an active process of development of the Malorussian cultural identity within the greater Russian nation, which united the Velikorussians, the Malorussians and the Belorussians.

At the same time, the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia. Since there was no historical basis – and could not have been any, conclusions were substantiated by all sorts of concoctions, which went as far as to claim that the Ukrainians are the true Slavs and the Russians, the Muscovites, are not. Such “hypotheses” became increasingly used for political purposes as a tool of rivalry between European states.

Since the late 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian authorities had latched onto this narrative, using it as a counterbalance to the Polish national movement and pro-Muscovite sentiments in Galicia. During World War I, Vienna played a role in the formation of the so-called Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Galicians suspected of sympathies with Orthodox Christianity and Russia were subjected to brutal repression and thrown into the concentration camps of Thalerhof and Terezin.

Further developments had to do with the collapse of European empires, the fierce civil war that broke out across the vast territory of the former Russian Empire, and foreign intervention.

After the February Revolution, in March 1917, the Central Rada was established in Kiev, intended to become the organ of supreme power. In November 1917, in its Third Universal, it declared the creation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR) as part of Russia.

In December 1917, UPR representatives arrived in Brest-Litovsk, where Soviet Russia was negotiating with Germany and its allies. At a meeting on 10 January 1918, the head of the Ukrainian delegation read out a note proclaiming the independence of Ukraine. Subsequently, the Central Rada proclaimed Ukraine independent in its Fourth Universal.

The declared sovereignty did not last long. Just a few weeks later, Rada delegates signed a separate treaty with the German bloc countries. Germany and Austria-Hungary were at the time in a dire situation and needed Ukrainian bread and raw materials. In order to secure large-scale supplies, they obtained consent for sending their troops and technical staff to the UPR. In fact, this was used as a pretext for occupation.

For those who have today given up the full control of Ukraine to external forces, it would be instructive to remember that, back in 1918, such a decision proved fatal for the ruling regime in Kiev. With the direct involvement of the occupying forces, the Central Rada was overthrown and Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi was brought to power, proclaiming instead of the UPR the Ukrainian State, which was essentially under German protectorate.

In November 1918 – following the revolutionary events in Germany and Austria-Hungary – Pavlo Skoropadskyi, who had lost the support of German bayonets, took a different course, declaring that “Ukraine is to take the lead in the formation of an All-Russian Federation”. However, the regime was soon changed again. It was now the time of the so-called Directorate.

In autumn 1918, Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed the West Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR) and, in January 1919, announced its unification with the Ukrainian People's Republic. In July 1919, Ukrainian forces were crushed by Polish troops, and the territory of the former WUPR came under the Polish rule.

In April 1920, Symon Petliura (portrayed as one of the “heroes” in today's Ukraine) concluded secret conventions on behalf of the UPR Directorate, giving up – in exchange for military support – Galicia and Western Volhynia lands to Poland. In May 1920, Petliurites entered Kiev in a convoy of Polish military units. But not for long. As early as November 1920, following a truce between Poland and Soviet Russia, the remnants of Petliura's forces surrendered to those same Poles.

The example of the UPR shows that different kinds of quasi-state formations that emerged across the former Russian Empire at the time of the Civil War and turbulence were inherently unstable. Nationalists sought to create their own independent states, while leaders of the White movement advocated indivisible Russia. Many of the republics established by the Bolsheviks' supporters did not see themselves outside Russia either. Nevertheless, Bolshevik Party leaders sometimes basically drove them out of Soviet Russia for various reasons.

Thus, in early 1918, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic was proclaimed and asked Moscow to incorporate it into Soviet Russia. This was met with a refusal. During a meeting with the republic's leaders, Vladimir Lenin insisted that they act as part of Soviet Ukraine. On 15 March 1918, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) directly ordered that delegates be sent to the Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, including from the Donetsk Basin, and that “one government for all of Ukraine” be created at the congress. The territories of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic later formed most of the regions of south-eastern Ukraine.

Under the 1921 Treaty of Riga, concluded between the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and Poland, the western lands of the former Russian Empire were ceded to Poland. In the interwar period, the Polish government pursued an active resettlement policy, seeking to change the ethnic composition of the Eastern Borderlands – the Polish name for what is now Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and parts of Lithuania. The areas were subjected to harsh Polonisation, local culture and traditions suppressed. Later, during World War II, radical groups of Ukrainian nationalists used this as a pretext for terror not only against Polish, but also against Jewish and Russian populations.

In 1922, when the USSR was created, with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic becoming one of its founders, a rather fierce debate among the Bolshevik leaders resulted in the implementation of Lenin's plan to form a union state as a federation of equal republics. The right for the republics to freely secede from the Union was included in the text of the Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, subsequently, in the 1924 USSR Constitution. By doing so, the authors planted in the foundation of our statehood the most dangerous time bomb, which exploded the moment the safety mechanism provided by the leading role of the CPSU was gone, the party itself collapsing from within. A “parade of sovereignties” followed. On 8 December 1991, the so-called Belovezh Agreement on the Creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States was signed, stating that “the USSR as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality no longer existed.” By the way, Ukraine never signed or ratified the CIS Charter adopted back in 1993.

In the 1920's-1930's, the Bolsheviks actively promoted the “localization policy”, which took the form of Ukrainization in the Ukrainian SSR. Symbolically, as part of this policy and with consent of the Soviet authorities, Mikhail Grushevskiy, former chairman of Central Rada, one of the ideologists of Ukrainian nationalism, who at a certain period of time had been supported by Austria-Hungary, was returned to the USSR and was elected member of the Academy of Sciences.

The localization policy undoubtedly played a major role in the development and consolidation of the Ukrainian culture, language and identity. At the same time, under the guise of combating the so-called Russian great-power chauvinism, Ukrainization was often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians. This Soviet national policy secured at the state level the provision on three separate Slavic peoples: Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian, instead of the large Russian nation, a triune people comprising Velikorussians, Malorussians and Belorussians.

In 1939, the USSR regained the lands earlier seized by Poland. A major portion of these became part of the Soviet Ukraine. In 1940, the Ukrainian SSR incorporated part of Bessarabia, which had been occupied by Romania since 1918, as well as Northern Bukovina. In 1948, Zmeyiniy Island (Snake Island) in the Black Sea became part of Ukraine. In 1954, the Crimean Region of the RSFSR was given to the Ukrainian SSR, in gross violation of legal norms that were in force at the time.

I would like to dwell on the destiny of Carpathian Ruthenia, which became part of Czechoslovakia following the breakup of Austria-Hungary. Rusins made up a considerable share of local population. While this is hardly mentioned any longer, after the liberation of Transcarpathia by Soviet troops the congress of the Orthodox population of the region voted for the inclusion of Carpathian Ruthenia in the RSFSR or, as a separate Carpathian republic, in the USSR proper. Yet the choice of people was ignored. In summer 1945, the historical act of the reunification of Carpathian Ukraine “with its ancient motherland, Ukraine” – as The Pravda newspaper put it – was announced.

Therefore, modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped – for a significant part – on the lands of historical Russia. To make sure of that, it is enough to look at the boundaries of the lands reunited with the Russian state in the 17th century and the territory of the Ukrainian SSR when it left the Soviet Union.

The Bolsheviks treated the Russian people as inexhaustible material for their social experiments. They dreamt of a world revolution that would wipe out national states. That is why they were so generous in drawing borders and bestowing territorial gifts. It is no longer important what exactly the idea of the Bolshevik leaders who were chopping the country into pieces was. We can disagree about minor details, background and logics behind certain decisions. One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed.

When working on this article, I relied on open-source documents that contain well-known facts rather than on some secret records. The leaders of modern Ukraine and their external “patrons” prefer to overlook these facts. They do not miss a chance, however, both inside the country and abroad, to condemn “the crimes of the Soviet regime,” listing among them events with which neither the CPSU, nor the USSR, let alone modern Russia, have anything to do. At the same time, the Bolsheviks' efforts to detach from Russia its historical territories are not considered a crime. And we know why: if they brought about the weakening of Russia, our ill-wishes are happy with that.

Of course, inside the USSR, borders between republics were never seen as state borders; they were nominal within a single country, which, while featuring all the attributes of a federation, was highly centralized – this, again, was secured by the CPSU's leading role. But in 1991, all those territories, and, which is more important, people, found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland.

What can be said to this? Things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!

You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome! But what are the terms? I will recall the assessment given by one of the most prominent political figures of new Russia, first mayor of Saint Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak. As a legal expert who believed that every decision must be legitimate, in 1992, he shared the following opinion: the republics that were founders of the Union, having denounced the 1922 Union Treaty, must return to the boundaries they had had before joining the Soviet Union. All other territorial acquisitions are subject to discussion, negotiations, given that the ground has been revoked.

In other words, when you leave, take what you brought with you. This logic is hard to refute. I will just say that the Bolsheviks had embarked on reshaping boundaries even before the Soviet Union, manipulating with territories to their liking, in disregard of people's views.

The Russian Federation recognized the new geopolitical realities: and not only recognized, but, indeed, did a lot for Ukraine to establish itself as an independent country. Throughout the difficult 1990's and in the new millennium, we have provided considerable support to Ukraine. Whatever “political arithmetic” of its own Kiev may wish to apply, in 1991–2013, Ukraine's budget savings amounted to more than USD 82 billion, while today, it holds on to the mere USD 1.5 billion of Russian payments for gas transit to Europe. If economic ties between our countries had been retained, Ukraine would enjoy the benefit of tens of billions of dollars.

Ukraine and Russia have developed as a single economic system over decades and centuries. The profound cooperation we had 30 years ago is an example for the European Union to look up to. We are natural complementary economic partners. Such a close relationship can strengthen competitive advantages, increasing the potential of both countries.

Ukraine used to possess great potential, which included powerful infrastructure, gas transportation system, advanced shipbuilding, aviation, rocket and instrument engineering industries, as well as world-class scientific, design and engineering schools. Taking over this legacy and declaring independence, Ukrainian leaders promised that the Ukrainian economy would be one of the leading ones and the standard of living would be among the best in Europe.

Today, high-tech industrial giants that were once the pride of Ukraine and the entire Union, are sinking. Engineering output has dropped by 42 per cent over ten years. The scale of deindustrialization and overall economic degradation is visible in Ukraine's electricity production, which has seen a nearly two-time decrease in 30 years. Finally, according to IMF reports, in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, Ukraine's GDP per capita had been below USD 4 thousand. This is less than in the Republic of Albania, the Republic of Moldova, or unrecognized Kosovo. Nowadays, Ukraine is Europe's poorest country.

Who is to blame for this? Is it the people of Ukraine's fault? Certainly not. It was the Ukrainian authorities who wasted and frittered away the achievements of many generations. We know how hardworking and talented the people of Ukraine are. They can achieve success and outstanding results with perseverance and determination. And these qualities, as well as their openness, innate optimism and hospitality have not gone. The feelings of millions of people who treat Russia not just well but with great affection, just as we feel about Ukraine, remain the same.

Until 2014, hundreds of agreements and joint projects were aimed at developing our economies, business and cultural ties, strengthening security, and solving common social and environmental problems. They brought tangible benefits to people – both in Russia and Ukraine. This is what we believed to be most important. And that is why we had a fruitful interaction with all, I emphasize, with all the leaders of Ukraine.

Even after the events in Kiev of 2014, I charged the Russian government to elaborate options for preserving and maintaining our economic ties within relevant ministries and agencies. However, there was and is still no mutual will to do the same. Nevertheless, Russia is still one of Ukraine's top three trading partners, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are coming to us to work, and they find a welcome reception and support. So that is what the “aggressor state” is.

When the USSR collapsed, many people in Russia and Ukraine sincerely believed and assumed that our close cultural, spiritual and economic ties would certainly last, as would the commonality of our people, who had always had a sense of unity at their core. However, events – at first gradually, and then more rapidly – started to move in a different direction.

In essence, Ukraine's ruling circles decided to justify their country's independence through the denial of its past, however, except for border issues. They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation. The common tragedy of collectivization and famine of the early 1930s was portrayed as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.

Radicals and neo-Nazis were open and more and more insolent about their ambitions. They were indulged by both the official authorities and local oligarchs, who robbed the people of Ukraine and kept their stolen money in Western banks, ready to sell their motherland for the sake of preserving their capital. To this should be added the persistent weakness of state institutions and the position of a willing hostage to someone else's geopolitical will.

I recall that long ago, well before 2014, the U.S. and EU countries systematically and consistently pushed Ukraine to curtail and limit economic cooperation with Russia. We, as the largest trade and economic partner of Ukraine, suggested discussing the emerging problems in the Ukraine-Russia-EU format. But every time we were told that Russia had nothing to do with it and that the issue concerned only the EU and Ukraine. De facto Western countries rejected Russia's repeated calls for dialogue.

Step by step, Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia. Inevitably, there came a time when the concept of “Ukraine is not Russia” was no longer an option. There was a need for the “anti-Russia” concept which we will never accept.

The owners of this project took as a basis the old groundwork of the Polish-Austrian ideologists to create an “anti-Moscow Russia”. And there is no need to deceive anyone that this is being done in the interests of the people of Ukraine. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth never needed Ukrainian culture, much less Cossack autonomy. In Austria-Hungary, historical Russian lands were mercilessly exploited and remained the poorest. The Nazis, abetted by collaborators from the OUN-UPA, did not need Ukraine, but a living space and slaves for Aryan overlords.

Nor were the interests of the Ukrainian people thought of in February 2014. The legitimate public discontent, caused by acute socio-economic problems, mistakes, and inconsistent actions of the authorities of the time, was simply cynically exploited. Western countries directly interfered in Ukraine's internal affairs and supported the coup. Radical nationalist groups served as its battering ram. Their slogans, ideology, and blatant aggressive Russophobia have to a large extent become defining elements of state policy in Ukraine.

All the things that united us and bring us together so far came under attack. First and foremost, the Russian language. Let me remind you that the new “Maidan” authorities first tried to repeal the law on state language policy. Then there was the law on the “purification of power”, the law on education that virtually cut the Russian language out of the educational process.

Lastly, as early as May of this year, the current president introduced a bill on “indigenous peoples” to the Rada. Only those who constitute an ethnic minority and do not have their own state entity outside Ukraine are recognized as indigenous. The law has been passed. New seeds of discord have been sown. And this is happening in a country, as I have already noted, that is very complex in terms of its territorial, national and linguistic composition, and its history of formation.

There may be an argument: if you are talking about a single large nation, a triune nation, then what difference does it make who people consider themselves to be – Russians, Ukrainians, or Belarusians. I completely agree with this. Especially since the determination of nationality, particularly in mixed families, is the right of every individual, free to make his or her own choice.

But the fact is that the situation in Ukraine today is completely different because it involves a forced change of identity. And the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us. As a result of such a harsh and artificial division of Russians and Ukrainians, the Russian people in all may decrease by hundreds of thousands or even millions.

Our spiritual unity has also been attacked. As in the days of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a new ecclesiastical has been initiated. The secular authorities, making no secret of their political aims, have blatantly interfered in church life and brought things to a split, to the seizure of churches, the beating of priests and monks. Even extensive autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church while maintaining spiritual unity with the Moscow Patriarchate strongly displeases them. They have to destroy this prominent and centuries-old symbol of our kinship at all costs.

I think it is also natural that the representatives of Ukraine over and over again vote against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism. Marches and torchlit processions in honor of remaining war criminals from the SS units take place under the protection of the official authorities. Mazepa, who betrayed everyone, Petliura, who paid for Polish patronage with Ukrainian lands, and Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis, are ranked as national heroes. Everything is being done to erase from the memory of young generations the names of genuine patriots and victors, who have always been the pride of Ukraine.

For the Ukrainians who fought in the Red Army, in partisan units, the Great Patriotic War was indeed a patriotic war because they were defending their home, their great common Motherland. Over two thousand soldiers became Heroes of the Soviet Union. Among them are legendary pilot Ivan Kozhedub, fearless sniper, defender of Odessa and Sevastopol Lyudmila Pavlichenko, valiant guerrilla commander Sidor Kovpak. This indomitable generation fought, those people gave their lives for our future, for us. To forget their feat is to betray our grandfathers, mothers and fathers.

The anti-Russia project has been rejected by millions of Ukrainians. The people of Crimea and residents of Sevastopol made their historic choice. And people in the southeast peacefully tried to defend their stance. Yet, all of them, including children, were labeled as separatists and terrorists. They were threatened with ethnic cleansing and the use of military force. And the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk took up arms to defend their home, their language and their lives. Were they left any other choice after the riots that swept through the cities of Ukraine, after the horror and tragedy of 2 May 2014 in Odessa where Ukrainian neo-Nazis burned people alive making a new Khatyn out of it? The same massacre was ready to be carried out by the followers of Bandera in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Lugansk. Even now they do not abandon such plans. They are biding their time. But their time will not come.

The coup d'état and the subsequent actions of the Kiev authorities inevitably provoked confrontation and civil war. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that the total number of victims in the conflict in Donbas has exceeded 13,000. Among them are the elderly and children. These are terrible, irreparable losses.

Russia has done everything to stop fratricide. The Minsk agreements aimed at a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbas have been concluded. I am convinced that they still have no alternative. In any case, no one has withdrawn their signatures from the Minsk Package of Measures or from the relevant statements by the leaders of the Normandy format countries. No one has initiated a review of the United Nations Security Council resolution of 17 February 2015.

During official negotiations, especially after being reined in by Western partners, Ukraine's representatives regularly declare their “full adherence” to the Minsk agreements, but are in fact guided by a position of “unacceptability”. They do not intend to seriously discuss either the special status of Donbas or safeguards for the people living there. They prefer to exploit the image of the “victim of external aggression” and peddle Russophobia. They arrange bloody provocations in Donbas. In short, they attract the attention of external patrons and masters by all means.

Apparently, and I am becoming more and more convinced of this: Kiev simply does not need Donbas. Why? Because, firstly, the inhabitants of these regions will never accept the order that they have tried and are trying to impose by force, blockade and threats. And secondly, the outcome of both Minsk‑1 and Minsk‑2 which give a real chance to peacefully restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine by coming to an agreement directly with the DPR and LPR with Russia, Germany and France as mediators, contradicts the entire logic of the anti-Russia project. And it can only be sustained by the constant cultivation of the image of an internal and external enemy. And I would add – under the protection and control of the Western powers.

This is what is actually happening. First of all, we are facing the creation of a climate of fear in Ukrainian society, aggressive rhetoric, indulging neo-Nazis and militarising the country. Along with that we are witnessing not just complete dependence but direct external control, including the supervision of the Ukrainian authorities, security services and armed forces by foreign advisers, military “development” of the territory of Ukraine and deployment of NATO infrastructure. It is no coincidence that the aforementioned flagrant law on “indigenous peoples” was adopted under the cover of large-scale NATO exercises in Ukraine.

This is also a disguise for the takeover of the rest of the Ukrainian economy and the exploitation of its natural resources. The sale of agricultural land is not far off, and it is obvious who will buy it up. From time to time, Ukraine is indeed given financial resources and loans, but under their own conditions and pursuing their own interests, with preferences and benefits for Western companies. By the way, who will pay these debts back? Apparently, it is assumed that this will have to be done not only by today's generation of Ukrainians but also by their children, grandchildren and probably great-grandchildren.

The Western authors of the anti-Russia project set up the Ukrainian political system in such a way that presidents, members of parliament and ministers would change but the attitude of separation from and enmity with Russia would remain. Reaching peace was the main election slogan of the incumbent president. He came to power with this. The promises turned out to be lies. Nothing has changed. And in some ways the situation in Ukraine and around Donbas has even degenerated.

In the anti-Russia project, there is no place either for a sovereign Ukraine or for the political forces that are trying to defend its real independence. Those who talk about reconciliation in Ukrainian society, about dialogue, about finding a way out of the current impasse are labelled as “pro-Russian” agents.

Again, for many people in Ukraine, the anti-Russia project is simply unacceptable. And there are millions of such people. But they are not allowed to raise their heads. They have had their legal opportunity to defend their point of view in fact taken away from them. They are intimidated, driven underground. Not only are they persecuted for their convictions, for the spoken word, for the open expression of their position, but they are also killed. Murderers, as a rule, go unpunished.

Today, the “right” patriot of Ukraine is only the one who hates Russia. Moreover, the entire Ukrainian statehood, as we understand it, is proposed to be further built exclusively on this idea. Hate and anger, as world history has repeatedly proved this, are a very shaky foundation for sovereignty, fraught with many serious risks and dire consequences.

All the subterfuges associated with the anti-Russia project are clear to us. And we will never allow our historical territories and people close to us living there to be used against Russia. And to those who will undertake such an attempt, I would like to say that this way they will destroy their own country.

The incumbent authorities in Ukraine like to refer to Western experience, seeing it as a model to follow. Just have a look at how Austria and Germany, the USA and Canada live next to each other. Close in ethnic composition, culture, in fact sharing one language, they remain sovereign states with their own interests, with their own foreign policy. But this does not prevent them from the closest integration or allied relations. They have very conditional, transparent borders. And when crossing them the citizens feel at home. They create families, study, work, do business. Incidentally, so do millions of those born in Ukraine who now live in Russia. We see them as our own close people.

Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine and ready to discuss the most complex issues. But it is important for us to understand that our partner is defending its national interests but not serving someone else's, and is not a tool in someone else's hands to fight against us.

We respect the Ukrainian language and traditions. We respect Ukrainians' desire to see their country free, safe and prosperous.

I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources, they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.

Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways. Yet, many people will hear me. And I will say one thing – Russia has never been and will never be “anti-Ukraine”. And what Ukraine will be – it is up to its citizens to decide.

This work is from the website of the President of the Russian Federation and is copyrighted. It is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. In short: you are free to distribute and modify this work as long as you attribute www.kremlin.ru.

The permission letter from the Press Secretary for the President of the Russian Federation is available as Kremlin authorisation-English.pdf .

Public domain Public domain false false

• CC attribution 4.0

Navigation menu

Advertisement

Supported by

The Interpreter

Putin’s Case for War, Annotated

For the second time in days, President Vladimir V. Putin addressed Russians about his aims in Ukraine. A close look at his speech offers hints to what may lie ahead.

• Share full article

By Max Fisher

When Vladimir V. Putin announced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a televised address on Thursday, he articulated aims far beyond those of Russia’s prior assaults on its Ukrainian neighbor.

In a sweeping and angry address, Mr. Putin portrayed the conflict as one waged against the West as a whole. In a falsehood-filled narrative too detailed to be dismissed as mere nationalist fervor, Mr. Putin argued that the West aimed to use Ukraine as a springboard to invade and destroy Russia.

Unlike his speech earlier in the week , Mr. Putin spent relatively little time rehashing false stories of Ukrainian atrocities against the country’s Russian-speaking minority. Those claims had served as justification for his decision to recognize Russian-backed separatist forces, which have held parts of eastern Ukraine since 2014, as independent states that he was intervening to protect.

Rather, he portrayed the war as a pre-emptive strike against Western aggression and a decisive battle to protect Russia’s rightful imperial hold over Europe’s east.

What follows is a concise annotation of several key passages from his address.

The Case for War

It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns.

Mr. Putin framed his decision to invade Ukraine as a last-ditch effort to halt the West’s hostile expansion ever closer to Russia’s borders.

Since the end of the Cold War, a number of countries in Eastern Europe have chosen to join NATO, making them military allies of Moscow’s former adversaries in the West. In 2008, Washington pushed NATO to announc e that it might one day consider membership for Ukraine, though Western leaders have insisted ever since that they see little prospect of this coming about any time soon.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

• Utility Menu

GA4 Tracking code

Contextualizing putin's "on the historical unity of russians and ukrainians".

Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent essay, "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians," which was published on the Kremlin's website in Russian , English and Ukrainian , elaborates on his frequently stated assertion that Ukrainians and Russians are "one people." In what Anne Applebaum called “ essentially a call to arms ," Putin posits that Ukraine can only be sovereign in partnership with Russia, doesn't need the Donbas and nullified its claims on Crimea with its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union, and has been weakened by the West's efforts to undermine the unity of the Slavs.

Responses to the 5000-word article have ranged from deep concern to near dismissal , with some likening its statements to a justification for war and others pointing to its lack of novelty and suggesting that the primary audience is President Volodymyr Zelensky as he met with leaders in the West. (Zelensky, for his part, offered the tongue-in-cheek response that Putin must have a lot of extra time on his hands.) The discussions inspired by the essay have explored questions such as: Why is Russia so obsessed with Ukraine ? Where do the facts diverge from myth? What is Putin's motivation for writing this document? 

In August 2017, we published an interview with Serhii Plokhii (Plokhy) about his book  Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation , which addresses many of the themes emerging in discussions in the wake of Putin's statements. We are reposting the interview below for those who are interested in learning more about Russian nationalism and the intersection of history and myth, past and present.

In the coming weeks, we will also publish excerpts from Plokhii's forthcoming book The Frontline  in open access on our HURI Books website. 

August 2017 Interview

Covering the late 15th century through the present, this book focuses specifically on the Russian nationalism, exploring how leaders from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin instrumentalized identity to achieve their imperial and great-power aims. Along the way, Plokhy reveals the central role Ukraine plays in Russia’s identity, both as an “other” to distinguish Russia, and as part of a pan-Slavic conceptualization used to legitimize territorial expansion and political control. 

HURI:  Did you come across anything in your research that surprised you?

Plokhy:  A monument to St Volodymyr/ St Vladimir was recently constructed in the most coveted, the most prestigious, the most visible place in the Russian capital, right across from the Kremlin. To me, this was striking enough that I made it the opening of my book.

St. Volodymyr, the Prince who ruled in Kyiv, is more prominent in the Russian capital in terms of the size and location of the statue than the alleged founder of Moscow, Yuriy Dologorukii. Some pundits say that St. Volodymyr is a namesake of Vladimir Putin, so this is really a celebration of Putin, but excepting all of that, there has to be a very particular understanding of Kyivan history to allow one to place in the very center of Moscow a statue of a ruler who ruled in a city that is the now the capital of a neighboring country. 

That means the things I've discussed in the book are not just of academic interest for historians; the history of the idea of what historian Alexei Miller called the “big Russian nation,” is important for understanding Russian behavior today, both at home and abroad. 

HURI:  Do you have any sense of the attitude of Russian people toward the monument?

Plokhy:  Muscovites protested against the plan to place the monument at Voroviev Hills, overseeing the city, but I do not think anyone said that it honored the wrong person or anything like that.

HURI:  In a book that covers 500 years of history, some interesting common threads must appear. What are some of these constants?

Plokhy:  One common thread is the centrality of Ukraine in defining what Russia is and is not. The historical mythology of Kyivan Rus' is contested by Russians and Ukrainians. But no matter how strong or weak the argument on the Ukrainian side of the debate, Russians today have a difficult time imagining Kyiv being not part of Russia or Russia-dominated space and Kyivan Rus' not being an integral part of Russian history.

Ukraine and Ukrainians are important for Russian identity at later stages, as well. For example, the first published textbook of “Russian history” was written and published in Kyiv in the 1670s. This Kyivan book became the basic text of Russian history for more than 150 years.

In the 20th century and today, we see the continuing importance of Ukraine in the ways the concept of the Russian world is formulated, the idea of Holy Rus', church history and church narrative, and so on.

That is one of the reasons why post-Soviet Russia is not only engaged in the economic warfare, or ideological warfare with Kyiv, but is fighting a real physical war in Ukraine. On the one hand, it's counter-intuitive, given that Putin says Ukrainians and Russians are one and the same people, but, given the importance of Ukrainian history for Russia, it's a big issue for which they are prepared to fight.

HURI:  Can you talk about a few important actions or moments when Ukraine saw itself as a distinct group from the projected pan-Russian nation, and maybe when it saw itself as part of it?

The development of a separate Ukrainian identity, literature, and language was met in the 19th century with attempts to arrest that development. HURI recently published an important collection of articles,  Battle for Ukrainian , which (among other things) shows how important language is for the national formation and identity. The Russian Empire also treated language as a matter of security. That's why in 1863 it was the Minister of Interior who issued the decree limiting use of the Ukrainian language, not the Minister of Education, not the President of the Academy of Sciences, but the Minister of Interior. It was a matter of security.

The battles start then and focus on history and language, but for a long time the goal of Ukrainian activists was autonomy, not independence per se. The idea of Ukrainian independence in earnest was put on the political agenda in the 20th century and since then it's refused to leave. In the 20th century, we had five attempts to declare an independent Ukrainian state. The fifth succeeded in 1991, and then the question was, “Okay, you have a state, but what kind of nation does or will Ukraine have? Is it ethnic? Is it political? What separates Russia from Ukraine?” These are the questions that found themselves in the center of public debate. There’s probably no other country where the president would publish a book like  Ukraine Is Not Russia  (President Kuchma). You can't imagine President Macron writing France Is Not Germany or anything like that.

HURI:  Anne Applebaum said  during a lecture  at the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, “If Stalin feared that Ukrainian nationalism could bring down the Soviet regime, Putin fears that Ukraine’s example could bring down his own regime, a modern autocratic kleptocracy.” Putin emphasizes the “sameness” of the nations, which would seem to increase the power of Ukraine’s example to undermine his regime. Do you think the the drive to call Ukrainians the same as Russians is informed not only by foreign policy, but also by domestic considerations? 

Plokhy:  I think so. Historically the two groups have a lot in common, especially since eastern and central Ukraine were part of the Russian Empire for a long period of time, starting in the mid-17th century. Therefore, common history is certainly there, and the structure of society, the level of education, the level of urbanization, and other things are similar.

Because of these connections, if Ukraine could do certain things, it would be much more difficult to say it can’t be done in Russia, that Russia has a special destiny, that democracy would never work in Russia, and so on and so forth. That would be not just a geopolitical setback for Russia, but would undermine the legitimizing myth Russia needs in order to have an authoritarian regime. 

HURI:  Are there any important differences between the behavior of Putin and previous leaders?

The policies introduced in the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine or in Crimea offer very little space for Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture. That's a big difference in thinking from what we had in most of the 20th century, when there were all sorts of atrocities but at least on the theoretical level the Ukrainian nation’s right to exist was never questioned. Now it is. The recent attempt to declare “Little Russia” in Donbas and under this banner to take over the rest of Ukraine, promoted by Mr. Surkov, has failed, but it shows that the Russian elites prefer to think about Ukraine in pre-revolutionary terms, pretending as though the revolution that helped to create an independent Ukrainian state and the Soviet period with its nation-building initiatives had never taken place.

HURI:  How about the mentality of Russian citizens toward Ukrainians?

Plokhy:  When the conflict started, Putin was voicing the opinion of the majority of Russians that there is no real difference between Russians and Ukrainians, but the war is changing that. We see a much bigger spike of hostility toward Ukraine on the side of Russian population as compared to the spike of anti-Russian feelings in Ukraine, which also reveals a lot about the two societies and how state propaganda works.

HURI:  Speaking of Russian nation-building and nationalism, what about the non-Slavic peoples, particularly those living to the east of the Urals? Has their inclusion and sense of belonging in the Russian state (or empire) changed over time?

Plokhy:  I leave this subject largely outside the frame of this book, which focuses mainly on relations between Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians, and how the sense of Russian identity evolved over time. But non-Slavs are extremely important part of Russian imperial history as a whole.

Russia today, compared to imperial Russia or the Soviet Union, has lost a lot of its non-Russian territories, including Ukraine and Belarus, but still a good number of non-Slavs live in the Russian Federation. On the one hand, the government understands that and tries not to rock the boat, but exclusive Russian ethnic nationalism is generally on the rise in Russia. The Russians who came to Crimea, the people who came to Donbas, like Igor Girkin (Strelkov), they came to Ukraine with a pan-Russian ideology. It's not just anti-Western, it puts primacy on the ethnically, linguistically, culturally understood Russian people, which certainly threatens relations with non-Russians within the Russian Federation.

What we see is the ethnicization of Russian identity in today's Russia. It has a lot of ugly manifestations, but overall it's a common process for many imperial nations to separate themselves from their subjects and possessions. Russians redefine what Russians are by putting emphasis on ethnicity. We witnessed such processes in Germany, and in France, and in both countries there were a lot of unpleasant things, to put it mildly.

Plokhy:  For a long time, Russian ethnic nationalism, particularly in the Soviet Union, was basically under attack. Russian as lingua franca was of course supported and promoted, the dominance of Russian cadres in general was supported, but the emphasis on ethnicity, on Russian ethnicity in particular, was not welcome because that could mobilize non-Russian nationalism as a reaction, and that was a threat to the multi-ethnic character of the state.

Today, Russia is much less multi-ethnic than it was during Soviet times, and the regime is much more prepared to use ethnic Russian nationalism for self-legitimization or mobilization for war, like the war in Ukraine. All of that contributes to the rise of ethnic nationalism. The government relies more on its support and it provides less of a threat to the state, given that the state is less multi-ethnic.

HURI:  With the belief that Russia's borders should come in line with the ethnic Russian population, doesn't that create a danger with Chechnya and other autonomous republics in the Caucasus having a reason to leave?

Plokhy:  It does. One group of ethnicity-focused and culture-focused Russian nationalists are saying that Russia should actually separate from the Caucasus. If you bring ethnonationalist thinking to its logical conclusion, that's what you get, and that's what some people in Russia argue. They're not an influential group, but they argue that.

HURI:  And what about, say, eastern Russia?

Plokhy:  Yes, in terms of geography, it is easier to imagine Chechnya and Dagestan leaving than Tatarstan. That is why extreme Russian nationalism is an export product for the Russian government, rather than the remedy the doctor himself is using at home. It is used to either annex or destabilize other countries, but within the country itself there is an emphasis on the multi-ethnicity of the Russian political nation. Putin has to keep the peace between the Orthodox and Muslim parts of the population.

The goal is to keep the post-Soviet space within the Russian sphere of influence. In the case of Georgia and Ukraine, the goal is also to preclude a drift over to the West; in the Baltic States, to question the underlying principle of NATO, that countries like the US or Germany would be prepared to risk a war over a small country like Estonia. Large NATO countries don't have the answer to that dilemma yet, and Putin is trying to create a situation where the answer will be “no.” So it's great power politics, it's sphere-of-influence politics.

Putin and the people around him are not ideologically driven doctrinaires. They use ideology to the degree that it can support great power ambitions and their vision of Russia’s role in the world. They jumped on the bandwagon of rising Russian nationalism, seeing in it an important tool to strengthen the regime both at home and abroad.

Ukraine became a polygon where the strength of Russian nationalism as a foreign policy was tested for the first time. The Baltic states have a big Russian-speaking minority where the "New Russia" card can be played if the circumstances are right.

HURI:  Was there a point after the fall of the Soviet Union when Russia turned back to an imperial model of Russian identity? Or was it never going to become a modern nation state?

Plokhy:  The shift started in the second half of the 1990s, but it really began to solidify when Putin came to power in 2000.

The 1990s for Russia were a very difficult period as a whole. Expectations were extremely high, but there was a major economic downturn, the loss of the status of a super power. This discredited the liberal project as a whole, in terms of foreign policy, in the organization of a political system, in the idea of democracy itself. The only thing from the West that Russia adopted to a different degree of success was a market economy. The market per se and private property, despite the high level of state influence, is still there, but the democracy did not survive. The Yeltsin-era attempt to shift from “Russkii” to more inclusive “Rossiyanin” as the political definition of Russianness also found itself under attack. The rise of ethnic Russian nationalism undermines the liberal model of the political Russian nation.

Society’s disappointment in the 1990s led to a search for alternatives, which were found in the idea of strengthening the power of the state and led to the rise of authoritarian tendencies. At the same time came Russia’s attempt to reclaim its great power status, despite an extreme gap between its geopolitical ambitions and economic potential. Today, Russia isn't even part of the ten largest world economies, so its GDP is smaller than Italy’s and Canada’s and is on par with South Korea’s. Think about Italy or Canada conducting that kind of aggressive foreign policy. You see the discrepancy right away.

This aggressive policy is a terrible thing for Ukraine and other countries, but it's also not good at all for Russia’s society, for the Russian economy, for the future of Russia as a state.

HURI:  What do you think of the term "managed democracy"? Do you think that's an accurate term?

Plokhy:  That's certainly the term that you can use to destroy democracy and get away with it.

Post-imperial countries - and that applies to the new nations in the post-Soviet space - face special difficulties in that regard. The majority of countries that were subjects of empires probably go through a period of authoritarian rule, and that's because they have to organize themselves, they have to build institutions. Think about Poland or Romania during the interwar period. You see the same situation in Belarus and Kazakhstan. Russia fell in that category as well. It was running an empire and had a long tradition of institutions, but none of those institutions were democratic.

Ukraine is an outlier in that sense. It's maintained its democratic institutions. It's paying a price for that, but the society is quite committed to keep going as a democratic country. There were two attempts -- one under President Kuchma, which resulted in one Maidan, and one under President Yanukovych, which resulted in another Maidan -- attempts to strengthen the presidential branch and join the post-Soviet authoritarian sphere. Both attempts were rejected by the Ukrainian society.

Foreign factors paid their role as well. But one should not overestimate those. On a certain level, the US was trying to help strengthen the democratic society and Russia was trying to strengthen the authoritarian tendencies in Yanukovych's regime, but in the end, it wasn’t up to outside players. The Ukrainian society made the decision, and in the last 25 years both attempts at authoritarianism failed.

They're issued by different publishers that view their readership differently. The title is the part of the book where the publisher has as much influence as the author, or maybe even more, and marketing people are also involved. The titles reflect the different ways publishers understand what is most important and can be conveyed in the most direct way to the readership.

HURI:  And I would guess it’s the same with the different cover art? What’s the significance of the images?

The same thing with the images. With the American one, there was a number of possibilities, and the publisher listened to my preference. The European one just produced something, and I accepted it.

So it's directly related to the story told in the book, but I also liked it as an image because it's extremely detailed, with a lot of things happening at the same time. It is easy to get lost in these details of battle. It fits the main title of the book,  Lost Kingdom , pretty well. The idea is that with all these wars and interventions, Russia lost its way to modern nationhood.

Join Our Mailing List

Search News

News by topic, related news.

• Serhii Plokhii: Casus Belli: Did Lenin Create Modern Ukraine?
• What Do Increasing Tensions Between Ukraine and Russia Mean? HURI Experts Respond
• Rory Finnin on Literature in the Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar Encounter
• Why the Maidan? How the Square Became a Place of Civic Action
• Ukraine’s Cycles of History: Taras Kuzio Presents His New Book

• Ground Reports
• 50-Word Edit
• National Interest
• Campus Voice
• Security Code
• Off The Cuff
• Democracy Wall
• Around Town
• PastForward
• In Pictures
• Last Laughs
• ThePrint Essential

New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin made a lengthy televised speech from the Kremlin Monday and said there is “no independent judiciary” in Ukraine.

“So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution,” Putin asserted in his speech.

Emphasising that Ukraine never had “stable traditions of real statehood”, Putin said if it joins NATO then it will be “a direct threat to Russia’s security”.

The Russian president also warned those who seized and continue to hold power in Kiev to “immediately stop hostilities”.

“The responsibility for the possible continuation of the bloodshed will lie entirely on the conscience of Ukraine’s ruling regime,” he added.

Read the full text of Russian President Vladimir Putin speech on Ukraine here:

Citizens of Russia, friends,

My address concerns the events in Ukraine and why this is so important for us, for Russia. Of course, my message is also addressed to our compatriots in Ukraine.

The matter is very serious and needs to be discussed in depth.

The situation in Donbass has reached a critical, acute stage. I am speaking to you directly today not only to explain what is happening but also to inform you of the decisions being made as well as potential further steps.

I would like to emphasise again that Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties.

Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians. This was the case before the 17th century, when a portion of this territory rejoined the Russian state, and after.

It seems to us that, generally speaking, we all know these facts, that this is common knowledge. Still, it is necessary to say at least a few words about the history of this issue in order to understand what is happening today, to explain the motives behind Russia’s actions and what we aim to achieve.

So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land. Nobody asked the millions of people living there what they thought.

Then, both before and after the Great Patriotic War, Stalin incorporated in the USSR and transferred to Ukraine some lands that previously belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary. In the process, he gave Poland part of what was traditionally German land as compensation, and in 1954, Khrushchev took Crimea away from Russia for some reason and also gave it to Ukraine. In effect, this is how the territory of modern Ukraine was formed.

But now I would like to focus attention on the initial period of the USSR’s formation. I believe this is extremely important for us. I will have to approach it from a distance, so to speak.

I will remind you that after the 1917 October Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, the Bolsheviks set about creating a new statehood. They had rather serious disagreements among themselves on this point. In 1922, Stalin occupied the positions of both the General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the People’s Commissar for Ethnic Affairs. He suggested building the country on the principles of autonomisation that is, giving the republics – the future administrative and territorial entities – broad powers upon joining a unified state.

Lenin criticised this plan and suggested making concessions to the nationalists, whom he called “independents” at that time. Lenin’s ideas of what amounted in essence to a confederative state arrangement and a slogan about the right of nations to self-determination, up to secession, were laid in the foundation of Soviet statehood. Initially they were confirmed in the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR in 1922, and later on, after Lenin’s death, were enshrined in the 1924 Soviet Constitution.

This immediately raises many questions. The first is really the main one: why was it necessary to appease the nationalists, to satisfy the ceaselessly growing nationalist ambitions on the outskirts of the former empire? What was the point of transferring to the newly, often arbitrarily formed administrative units – the union republics – vast territories that had nothing to do with them? Let me repeat that these territories were transferred along with the population of what was historically Russia.

Moreover, these administrative units were de facto given the status and form of national state entities. That raises another question: why was it necessary to make such generous gifts, beyond the wildest dreams of the most zealous nationalists and, on top of all that, give the republics the right to secede from the unified state without any conditions?

At first glance, this looks absolutely incomprehensible, even crazy. But only at first glance. There is an explanation. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks’ main goal was to stay in power at all costs, absolutely at all costs. They did everything for this purpose: accepted the humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, although the military and economic situation in Kaiser Germany and its allies was dramatic and the outcome of the First World War was a foregone conclusion, and satisfied any demands and wishes of the nationalists within the country.

When it comes to the historical destiny of Russia and its peoples, Lenin’s principles of state development were not just a mistake; they were worse than a mistake, as the saying goes. This became patently clear after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly, without any reservations or politicking. Personally, I can add that no political factors, however impressive or profitable they may seem at any given moment, can or may be used as the fundamental principles of statehood.

I am not trying to put the blame on anyone. The situation in the country at that time, both before and after the Civil War, was extremely complicated; it was critical. The only thing I would like to say today is that this is exactly how it was. It is a historical fact. Actually, as I have already said, Soviet Ukraine is the result of the Bolsheviks’ policy and can be rightfully called “Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine.” He was its creator and architect. This is fully and comprehensively corroborated by archival documents, including Lenin’s harsh instructions regarding Donbass, which was actually shoved into Ukraine. And today the “grateful progeny” has overturned monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. They call it decommunization.

You want decommunization? Very well, this suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine.

Going back to history, I would like to repeat that the Soviet Union was established in the place of the former Russian Empire in 1922. But practice showed immediately that it was impossible to preserve or govern such a vast and complex territory on the amorphous principles that amounted to confederation. They were far removed from reality and the historical tradition.

It is logical that the Red Terror and a rapid slide into Stalin’s dictatorship, the domination of the communist ideology and the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, nationalisation and the planned economy – all this transformed the formally declared but ineffective principles of government into a mere declaration. In reality, the union republics did not have any sovereign rights, none at all. The practical result was the creation of a tightly centralised and absolutely unitary state.

In fact, what Stalin fully implemented was not Lenin’s but his own principles of government. But he did not make the relevant amendments to the cornerstone documents, to the Constitution, and he did not formally revise Lenin’s principles underlying the Soviet Union. From the look of it, there seemed to be no need for that, because everything seemed to be working well in conditions of the totalitarian regime, and outwardly it looked wonderful, attractive and even super-democratic.

And yet, it is a great pity that the fundamental and formally legal foundations of our state were not promptly cleansed of the odious and utopian fantasies inspired by the revolution, which are absolutely destructive for any normal state. As it often happened in our country before, nobody gave any thought to the future.

It seems that the Communist Party leaders were convinced that they had created a solid system of government and that their policies had settled the ethnic issue for good. But falsification, misconception, and tampering with public opinion have a high cost. The virus of nationalist ambitions is still with us, and the mine laid at the initial stage to destroy state immunity to the disease of nationalism was ticking. As I have already said, the mine was the right of secession from the Soviet Union.

In the mid-1980s, the increasing socioeconomic problems and the apparent crisis of the planned economy aggravated the ethnic issue, which essentially was not based on any expectations or unfulfilled dreams of the Soviet peoples but primarily the growing appetites of the local elites.

However, instead of analysing the situation, taking appropriate measures, first of all in the economy, and gradually transforming the political system and government in a well-considered and balanced manner, the Communist Party leadership only engaged in open doubletalk about the revival of the Leninist principle of national self-determination.

Moreover, in the course of power struggle within the Communist Party itself, each of the opposing sides, in a bid to expand its support base, started to thoughtlessly incite and encourage nationalist sentiments, manipulating them and promising their potential supporters whatever they wished. Against the backdrop of the superficial and populist rhetoric about democracy and a bright future based either on a market or a planned economy, but amid a true impoverishment of people and widespread shortages, no one among the powers that be was thinking about the inevitable tragic consequences for the country.

Next, they entirely embarked on the track beaten at the inception of the USSR and pandering to the ambitions of the nationalist elites nurtured within their own party ranks. But in so doing, they forgot that the CPSU no longer had – thank God – the tools for retaining power and the country itself, tools such as state terror and a Stalinist-type dictatorship, and that the notorious guiding role of the party was disappearing without a trace, like a morning mist, right before their eyes.

And then, the September 1989 plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee approved a truly fatal document, the so-called ethnic policy of the party in modern conditions, the CPSU platform. It included the following provisions, I quote: “The republics of the USSR shall possess all the rights appropriate to their status as sovereign socialist states.”

The next point: “The supreme representative bodies of power of the USSR republics can challenge and suspend the operation of the USSR Government’s resolutions and directives in their territory.”

And finally: “Each republic of the USSR shall have citizenship of its own, which shall apply to all of its residents.”

Wasn’t it clear what these formulas and decisions would lead to?

Now is not the time or place to go into matters pertaining to state or constitutional law, or define the concept of citizenship. But one may wonder: why was it necessary to rock the country even more in that already complicated situation? The facts remain.

Even two years before the collapse of the USSR, its fate was actually predetermined. It is now that radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the CPSU leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies. The collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience.

Despite all these injustices, lies and outright pillage of Russia, it was our people who accepted the new geopolitical reality that took shape after the dissolution of the USSR, and recognised the new independent states. Not only did Russia recognise these countries, but helped its CIS partners, even though it faced a very dire situation itself. This included our Ukrainian colleagues, who turned to us for financial support many times from the very moment they declared independence. Our country provided this assistance while respecting Ukraine’s dignity and sovereignty.

According to expert assessments, confirmed by a simple calculation of our energy prices, the subsidised loans Russia provided to Ukraine along with economic and trade preferences, the overall benefit for the Ukrainian budget in the period from 1991 to 2013 amounted to $250 billion.

However, there was more to it than that. By the end of 1991, the USSR owed some $100 billion to other countries and international funds. Initially, there was this idea that all former Soviet republics will pay back these loans together, in the spirit of solidarity and proportionally to their economic potential. However, Russia undertook to pay back all Soviet debts and delivered on this promise by completing this process in 2017.

In exchange for that, the newly independent states had to hand over to Russia part of the Soviet foreign assets. An agreement to this effect was reached with Ukraine in December 1994. However, Kiev failed to ratify these agreements and later simply refused to honour them by making demands for a share of the Diamond Treasury, gold reserves, as well as former USSR property and other assets abroad.

Nevertheless, despite all these challenges, Russia always worked with Ukraine in an open and honest manner and, as I have already said, with respect for its interests. We developed our ties in multiple fields. Thus, in 2011, bilateral trade exceeded $50 billion. Let me note that in 2019, that is before the pandemic, Ukraine’s trade with all EU countries combined was below this indicator.

At the same time, it was striking how the Ukrainian authorities always preferred dealing with Russia in a way that ensured that they enjoy all the rights and privileges while remaining free from any obligations.

The officials in Kiev replaced partnership with a parasitic attitude acting at times in an extremely brash manner. Suffice it to recall the continuous blackmail on energy transits and the fact that they literally stole gas.

I can add that Kiev tried to use dialogue with Russia as a bargaining chip in its relations with the West, using the threat of closer ties with Russia for blackmailing the West to secure preferences by claiming that otherwise Russia would have a bigger influence in Ukraine.

At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities – I would like to emphasise this – began by building their statehood on the negation of everything that united us, trying to distort the mentality and historical memory of millions of people, of entire generations living in Ukraine. It is not surprising that Ukrainian society was faced with the rise of far-right nationalism, which rapidly developed into aggressive Russophobia and neo-Nazism. This resulted in the participation of Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis in the terrorist groups in the North Caucasus and the increasingly loud territorial claims to Russia.

A role in this was played by external forces, which used a ramified network of NGOs and special services to nurture their clients in Ukraine and to bring their representatives to the seats of authority.

It should be noted that Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood. And, therefore, in 1991 it opted for mindlessly emulating foreign models, which have no relation to history or Ukrainian realities. Political government institutions were readjusted many times to the rapidly growing clans and their self-serving interests, which had nothing to do with the interests of the Ukrainian people.

Essentially, the so-called pro-Western civilisational choice made by the oligarchic Ukrainian authorities was not and is not aimed at creating better conditions in the interests of people’s well-being but at keeping the billions of dollars that the oligarchs have stolen from the Ukrainians and are holding in their accounts in Western banks, while reverently accommodating the geopolitical rivals of Russia.

Some industrial and financial groups and the parties and politicians on their payroll relied on the nationalists and radicals from the very beginning. Others claimed to be in favour of good relations with Russia and cultural and language diversity, coming to power with the help of their citizens who sincerely supported their declared aspirations, including the millions of people in the south-eastern regions. But after getting the positions they coveted, these people immediately betrayed their voters, going back on their election promises and instead steering a policy prompted by the radicals and sometimes even persecuting their former allies – the public organisations that supported bilingualism and cooperation with Russia. These people took advantage of the fact that their voters were mostly law-abiding citizens with moderate views who trusted the authorities, and that, unlike the radicals, they would not act aggressively or make use of illegal instruments.

Meanwhile, the radicals became increasingly brazen in their actions and made more demands every year. They found it easy to force their will on the weak authorities, which were infected with the virus of nationalism and corruption as well and which artfully replaced the real cultural, economic and social interests of the people and Ukraine’s true sovereignty with various ethnic speculations and formal ethnic attributes.

A stable statehood has never developed in Ukraine; its electoral and other political procedures just serve as a cover, a screen for the redistribution of power and property between various oligarchic clans.

Corruption, which is certainly a challenge and a problem for many countries, including Russia, has gone beyond the usual scope in Ukraine. It has literally permeated and corroded Ukrainian statehood, the entire system, and all branches of power.

Radical nationalists took advantage of the justified public discontent and saddled the Maidan protest, escalating it to a coup d’état in 2014. They also had direct assistance from foreign states. According to reports, the US Embassy provided $1 million a day to support the so-called protest camp on Independence Square in Kiev. In addition, large amounts were impudently transferred directly to the opposition leaders’ bank accounts, tens of millions of dollars. But the people who actually suffered, the families of those who died in the clashes provoked in the streets and squares of Kiev and other cities, how much did they get in the end? Better not ask.

The nationalists who have seized power have unleashed a persecution, a real terror campaign against those who opposed their anti-constitutional actions. Politicians, journalists, and public activists were harassed and publicly humiliated. A wave of violence swept Ukrainian cities, including a series of high-profile and unpunished murders. One shudders at the memories of the terrible tragedy in Odessa, where peaceful protesters were brutally murdered, burned alive in the House of Trade Unions. The criminals who committed that atrocity have never been punished, and no one is even looking for them. But we know their names and we will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.

Maidan did not bring Ukraine any closer to democracy and progress. Having accomplished a coup d’état, the nationalists and those political forces that supported them eventually led Ukraine into an impasse, pushed the country into the abyss of civil war. Eight years later, the country is split. Ukraine is struggling with an acute socioeconomic crisis.

According to international organisations, in 2019, almost 6 million Ukrainians – I emphasise – about 15 percent, not of the wokrforce, but of the entire population of that country, had to go abroad to find work. Most of them do odd jobs. The following fact is also revealing: since 2020, over 60,000 doctors and other health workers have left the country amid the pandemic.

Since 2014, water bills increased by almost a third, and energy bills grew several times, while the price of gas for households surged several dozen times. Many people simply do not have the money to pay for utilities. They literally struggle to survive.

What happened? Why is this all happening? The answer is obvious. They spent and embezzled the legacy inherited not only from the Soviet era, but also from the Russian Empire. They lost tens, hundreds of thousands of jobs which enabled people to earn a reliable income and generate tax revenue, among other things thanks to close cooperation with Russia. Sectors including machine building, instrument engineering, electronics, ship and aircraft building have been undermined or destroyed altogether. There was a time, however, when not only Ukraine, but the entire Soviet Union took pride in these companies.

In 2021, the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolayev went out of business. Its first docks date back to Catherine the Great. Antonov, the famous manufacturer, has not made a single commercial aircraft since 2016, while Yuzhmash, a factory specialising in missile and space equipment, is nearly bankrupt. The Kremenchug Steel Plant is in a similar situation. This sad list goes on and on.

As for the gas transportation system, it was built in its entirety by the Soviet Union, and it has now deteriorated to an extent that using it creates major risks and comes at a high cost for the environment.

This situation begs the question: poverty, lack of opportunity, and lost industrial and technological potential – is this the pro-Western civilisational choice they have been using for many years to fool millions of people with promises of heavenly pastures?

It all came down to a Ukrainian economy in tatters and an outright pillage of the country’s citizens, while Ukraine itself was placed under external control, directed not only from the Western capitals, but also on the ground, as the saying goes, through an entire network of foreign advisors, NGOs and other institutions present in Ukraine. They have a direct bearing on all the key appointments and dismissals and on all branches of power at all levels, from the central government down to municipalities, as well as on state-owned companies and corporations, including Naftogaz, Ukrenergo, Ukrainian Railways, Ukroboronprom, Ukrposhta, and the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority.

There is no independent judiciary in Ukraine. The Kiev authorities, at the West’s demand, delegated the priority right to select members of the supreme judicial bodies, the Council of Justice and the High Qualifications Commission of Judges, to international organisations.

In addition, the United States directly controls the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the High Anti-Corruption Court. All this is done under the noble pretext of invigorating efforts against corruption. All right, but where are the results? Corruption is flourishing like never before.

Are the Ukrainian people aware that this is how their country is managed? Do they realise that their country has turned not even into a political or economic protectorate but has been reduced to a colony with a puppet regime? The state was privatised. As a result, the government, which designates itself as the “power of patriots” no longer acts in a national capacity and consistently pushes Ukraine towards losing its sovereignty.

The policy to root out the Russian language and culture and promote assimilation carries on. The Verkhovna Rada has generated a steady flow of discriminatory bills, and the law on the so-called indigenous people has already come into force. People who identify as Russians and want to preserve their identity, language and culture are getting the signal that they are not wanted in Ukraine.

Under the laws on education and the Ukrainian language as a state language, the Russian language has no place in schools or public spaces, even in ordinary shops. The law on the so-called vetting of officials and purging their ranks created a pathway for dealing with unwanted civil servants.

There are more and more acts enabling the Ukrainian military and law enforcement agencies to crack down on the freedom of speech, dissent, and going after the opposition. The world knows the deplorable practice of imposing unilateral illegitimate sanctions against other countries, foreign individuals and legal entities. Ukraine has outperformed its Western masters by inventing sanctions against its own citizens, companies, television channels, other media outlets and even members of parliament.

Kiev continues to prepare the destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. This is not an emotional judgement; proof of this can be found in concrete decisions and documents. The Ukrainian authorities have cynically turned the tragedy of the schism into an instrument of state policy. The current authorities do not react to the Ukrainian people’s appeals to abolish the laws that are infringing on believers’ rights. Moreover, new draft laws directed against the clergy and millions of parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate have been registered in the Verkhovna Rada.

A few words about Crimea. The people of the peninsula freely made their choice to be with Russia. The Kiev authorities cannot challenge the clearly stated choice of the people, which is why they have opted for aggressive action, for activating extremist cells, including radical Islamist organisations, for sending subversives to stage terrorist attacks at critical infrastructure facilities, and for kidnapping Russian citizens. We have factual proof that such aggressive actions are being taken with support from Western security services.

In March 2021, a new Military Strategy was adopted in Ukraine. This document is almost entirely dedicated to confrontation with Russia and sets the goal of involving foreign states in a conflict with our country. The strategy stipulates the organisation of what can be described as a terrorist underground movement in Russia’s Crimea and in Donbass. It also sets out the contours of a potential war, which should end, according to the Kiev strategists, “with the assistance of the international community on favourable terms for Ukraine,” as well as – listen carefully, please – “with foreign military support in the geopolitical confrontation with the Russian Federation.” In fact, this is nothing other than preparation for hostilities against our country, Russia.

As we know, it has already been stated today that Ukraine intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not just bragging. Ukraine has the nuclear technologies created back in the Soviet times and delivery vehicles for such weapons, including aircraft, as well as the Soviet-designed Tochka-U precision tactical missiles with a range of over 100 kilometres. But they can do more; it is only a matter of time. They have had the groundwork for this since the Soviet era.

In other words, acquiring tactical nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for some other states I am not going to mention here, which are conducting such research, especially if Kiev receives foreign technological support. We cannot rule this out either.

If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will drastically change, especially for us, for Russia. We cannot but react to this real danger, all the more so since, let me repeat, Ukraine’s Western patrons may help it acquire these weapons to create yet another threat to our country. We are seeing how persistently the Kiev regime is being pumped with arms. Since 2014, the United States alone has spent billions of dollars for this purpose, including supplies of arms and equipment and training of specialists. In the last few months, there has been a constant flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, ostentatiously, with the entire world watching. Foreign advisors supervise the activities of Ukraine’s armed forces and special services and we are well aware of this.

Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads.

The United States and NATO have started an impudent development of Ukrainian territory as a theatre of potential military operations. Their regular joint exercises are obviously anti-Russian. Last year alone, over 23,000 troops and more than a thousand units of hardware were involved.

A law has already been adopted that allows foreign troops to come to Ukraine in 2022 to take part in multinational drills. Understandably, these are primarily NATO troops. This year, at least ten of these joint drills are planned.

Obviously, such undertakings are designed to be a cover-up for a rapid buildup of the NATO military group on Ukrainian territory. This is all the more so since the network of airfields upgraded with US help in Borispol, Ivano-Frankovsk, Chuguyev and Odessa, to name a few, is capable of transferring army units in a very short time. Ukraine’s airspace is open to flights by US strategic and reconnaissance aircraft and drones that conduct surveillance over Russian territory.

I will add that the US-built Maritime Operations Centre in Ochakov makes it possible to support activity by NATO warships, including the use of precision weapons, against the Russian Black Sea Fleet and our infrastructure on the entire Black Sea Coast.

At one time, the United States intended to build similar facilities in Crimea as well but the Crimeans and residents of Sevastopol wrecked these plans. We will always remember this.

I would like to repeat that today such a centre has already been deployed in Ochakov. In the 18th century, soldiers of Alexander Suvorov fought for this city. Owing to their courage, it became part of Russia. Also in the 18th century, the lands of the Black Sea littoral, incorporated in Russia as a result of wars with the Ottoman Empire, were given the name of Novorossiya (New Russia). Now attempts are being made to condemn these landmarks of history to oblivion, along with the names of state and military figures of the Russian Empire without whose efforts modern Ukraine would not have many big cities or even access to the Black Sea.

A monument to Alexander Suvorov was recently demolished in Poltava. What is there to say? Are you renouncing your own past? The so-called colonial heritage of the Russian Empire? Well, in this case, be consistent.

Next, notably, Article 17 of the Constitution of Ukraine stipulates that deploying foreign military bases on its territory is illegal. However, as it turns out, this is just a conventionality that can be easily circumvented.

Ukraine is home to NATO training missions which are, in fact, foreign military bases. They just called a base a mission and were done with it.

Kiev has long proclaimed a strategic course on joining NATO. Indeed, each country is entitled to pick its own security system and enter into military alliances. There would be no problem with that, if it were not for one “but.” International documents expressly stipulate the principle of equal and indivisible security, which includes obligations not to strengthen one’s own security at the expense of the security of other states. This is stated in the 1999 OSCE Charter for European Security adopted in Istanbul and the 2010 OSCE Astana Declaration.

In other words, the choice of pathways towards ensuring security should not pose a threat to other states, whereas Ukraine joining NATO is a direct threat to Russia’s security.

Let me remind you that at the Bucharest NATO summit held in April 2008, the United States pushed through a decision to the effect that Ukraine and, by the way, Georgia would become NATO members. Many European allies of the United States were well aware of the risks associated with this prospect already then, but were forced to put up with the will of their senior partner. The Americans simply used them to carry out a clearly anti-Russian policy.

A number of NATO member states are still very sceptical about Ukraine joining NATO. We are getting signals from some European capitals telling us not to worry since it will not happen literally overnight. In fact, our US partners are saying the same thing as well. “All right, then” we respond, “if it does not happen tomorrow, then it will happen the day after tomorrow. What does it change from the historical perspective? Nothing at all.”

Furthermore, we are aware of the US leadership’s position and words that active hostilities in eastern Ukraine do not rule out the possibility of that country joining NATO if it meets NATO criteria and overcomes corruption.

All the while, they are trying to convince us over and over again that NATO is a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance that poses no threat to Russia. Again, they want us to take their word for it. But we are well aware of the real value of these words. In 1990, when German unification was discussed, the United States promised the Soviet leadership that NATO jurisdiction or military presence will not expand one inch to the east and that the unification of Germany will not lead to the spread of NATO’s military organisation to the east. This is a quote.

They issued lots of verbal assurances, all of which turned out to be empty phrases. Later, they began to assure us that the accession to NATO by Central and Eastern European countries would only improve relations with Moscow, relieve these countries of the fears steeped in their bitter historical legacy, and even create a belt of countries that are friendly towards Russia.

However, the exact opposite happened. The governments of certain Eastern European countries, speculating on Russophobia, brought their complexes and stereotypes about the Russian threat to the Alliance and insisted on building up the collective defence potentials and deploying them primarily against Russia. Worse still, that happened in the 1990s and the early 2000s when, thanks to our openness and goodwill, relations between Russia and the West had reached a high level.

Russia has fulfilled all of its obligations, including the pullout from Germany, from Central and Eastern Europe, making an immense contribution to overcoming the legacy of the Cold War. We have consistently proposed various cooperation options, including in the NATO-Russia Council and the OSCE formats.

Moreover, I will say something I have never said publicly, I will say it now for the first time. When then outgoing US President Bill Clinton visited Moscow in 2000, I asked him how America would feel about admitting Russia to NATO.

I will not reveal all the details of that conversation, but the reaction to my question was, let us say, quite restrained, and the Americans’ true attitude to that possibility can actually be seen from their subsequent steps with regard to our country. I am referring to the overt support for terrorists in the North Caucasus, the disregard for our security demands and concerns, NATO’s continued expansion, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and so on. It raises the question: why? What is all this about, what is the purpose? All right, you do not want to see us as friends or allies, but why make us an enemy?

There can be only one answer – this is not about our political regime or anything like that. They just do not need a big and independent country like Russia around. This is the answer to all questions. This is the source of America’s traditional policy towards Russia. Hence the attitude to all our security proposals

Today, one glance at the map is enough to see to what extent Western countries have kept their promise to refrain from NATO’s eastward expansion. They just cheated. We have seen five waves of NATO expansion, one after another – Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were admitted in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia in 2009; Montenegro in 2017; and North Macedonia in 2020.

As a result, the Alliance, its military infrastructure has reached Russia’s borders. This is one of the key causes of the European security crisis; it has had the most negative impact on the entire system of international relations and led to the loss of mutual trust.

The situation continues to deteriorate, including in the strategic area. Thus, positioning areas for interceptor missiles are being established in Romania and Poland as part of the US project to create a global missile defence system. It is common knowledge that the launchers deployed there can be used for Tomahawk cruise missiles – offensive strike systems.

In addition, the United States is developing its all-purpose Standard Missile-6, which can provide air and missile defence, as well as strike ground and surface targets. In other words, the allegedly defensive US missile defence system is developing and expanding its new offensive capabilities.

The information we have gives us good reason to believe that Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the subsequent deployment of NATO facilities has already been decided and is only a matter of time. We clearly understand that given this scenario, the level of military threats to Russia will increase dramatically, several times over. And I would like to emphasise at this point that the risk of a sudden strike at our country will multiply.

I will explain that American strategic planning documents confirm the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike at enemy missile systems. We also know the main adversary of the United States and NATO. It is Russia. NATO documents officially declare our country to be the main threat to Euro-Atlantic security. Ukraine will serve as an advanced bridgehead for such a strike. If our ancestors heard about this, they would probably simply not believe this. We do not want to believe this today either, but it is what it is. I would like people in Russia and Ukraine to understand this.

Many Ukrainian airfields are located not far from our borders. NATO’s tactical aviation deployed there, including precision weapon carriers, will be capable of striking at our territory to the depth of the Volgograd-Kazan-Samara-Astrakhan line. The deployment of reconnaissance radars on Ukrainian territory will allow NATO to tightly control Russia’s airspace up to the Urals.

Finally, after the US destroyed the INF Treaty, the Pentagon has been openly developing many land-based attack weapons, including ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 5,500 km. If deployed in Ukraine, such systems will be able to hit targets in Russia’s entire European part. The flying time of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Moscow will be less than 35 minutes; ballistic missiles from Kharkov will take seven to eight minutes; and hypersonic assault weapons, four to five minutes. It is like a knife to the throat. I have no doubt that they hope to carry out these plans, as they did many times in the past, expanding NATO eastward, moving their military infrastructure to Russian borders and fully ignoring our concerns, protests and warnings. Excuse me, but they simply did not care at all about such things and did whatever they deemed necessary.

Of course, they are going to behave in the same way in the future, following a well-known proverb: “The dogs bark but the caravan goes on.” Let me say right away – we do not accept this behaviour and will never accept it. That said, Russia has always advocated the resolution of the most complicated problems by political and diplomatic means, at the negotiating table.

We are well aware of our enormous responsibility when it comes to regional and global stability. Back in 2008, Russia put forth an initiative to conclude a European Security Treaty under which not a single Euro-Atlantic state or international organisation could strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others. However, our proposal was rejected right off the bat on the pretext that Russia should not be allowed to put limits on NATO activities.

Furthermore, it was made explicitly clear to us that only NATO members can have legally binding security guarantees.

Last December, we handed over to our Western partners a draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees, as well as a draft agreement on measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and NATO member states.

The United States and NATO responded with general statements. There were kernels of rationality in them as well, but they concerned matters of secondary importance and it all looked like an attempt to drag the issue out and to lead the discussion astray.

We responded to this accordingly and pointed out that we were ready to follow the path of negotiations, provided, however, that all issues are considered as a package that includes Russia’s core proposals which contain three key points. First, to prevent further NATO expansion. Second, to have the Alliance refrain from deploying assault weapon systems on Russian borders. And finally, rolling back the bloc’s military capability and infrastructure in Europe to where they were in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.

These principled proposals of ours have been ignored. To reiterate, our Western partners have once again vocalised the all-too-familiar formulas that each state is entitled to freely choose ways to ensure its security or to join any military union or alliance. That is, nothing has changed in their stance, and we keep hearing the same old references to NATO’s notorious “open door” policy. Moreover, they are again trying to blackmail us and are threatening us with sanctions, which, by the way, they will introduce no matter what as Russia continues to strengthen its sovereignty and its Armed Forces. To be sure, they will never think twice before coming up with or just fabricating a pretext for yet another sanction attack regardless of the developments in Ukraine. Their one and only goal is to hold back the development of Russia. And they will keep doing so, just as they did before, even without any formal pretext just because we exist and will never compromise our sovereignty, national interests or values.

I would like to be clear and straightforward: in the current circumstances, when our proposals for an equal dialogue on fundamental issues have actually remained unanswered by the United States and NATO, when the level of threats to our country has increased significantly, Russia has every right to respond in order to ensure its security. That is exactly what we will do.

With regard to the state of affairs in Donbass, we see that the ruling Kiev elites never stop publicly making clear their unwillingness to comply with the Minsk Package of Measures to settle the conflict and are not interested in a peaceful settlement. On the contrary, they are trying to orchestrate a blitzkrieg in Donbass as was the case in 2014 and 2015. We all know how these reckless schemes ended.

Not a single day goes by without Donbass communities coming under shelling attacks. The recently formed large military force makes use of attack drones, heavy equipment, missiles, artillery and multiple rocket launchers. The killing of civilians, the blockade, the abuse of people, including children, women and the elderly, continues unabated. As we say, there is no end in sight to this.

Meanwhile, the so-called civilised world, which our Western colleagues proclaimed themselves the only representatives of, prefers not to see this, as if this horror and genocide, which almost 4 million people are facing, do not exist. But they do exist and only because these people did not agree with the West-supported coup in Ukraine in 2014 and opposed the transition towards the Neanderthal and aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism which have been elevated in Ukraine to the rank of national policy. They are fighting for their elementary right to live on their own land, to speak their own language, and to preserve their culture and traditions.

How long can this tragedy continue? How much longer can one put up with this? Russia has done everything to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity. All these years, it has persistently and patiently pushed for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2202 of February 17, 2015, which consolidated the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, to settle the situation in Donbass.

Everything was in vain. Presidents and Rada deputies come and go, but deep down the aggressive and nationalistic regime that seized power in Kiev remains unchanged. It is entirely a product of the 2014 coup, and those who then embarked on the path of violence, bloodshed and lawlessness did not recognise then and do not recognise now any solution to the Donbass issue other than a military one.

In this regard, I consider it necessary to take a long overdue decision and to immediately recognise the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic.

I would like to ask the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to support this decision and then ratify the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance with both republics. These two documents will be prepared and signed shortly.

We want those who seized and continue to hold power in Kiev to immediately stop hostilities. Otherwise, the responsibility for the possible continuation of the bloodshed will lie entirely on the conscience of Ukraine’s ruling regime.

As I announce the decisions taken today, I remain confident in the support of Russia’s citizens and the country’s patriotic forces.

Also read : India should stand with the West against Russia

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube , Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here .

• Vladimir Putin

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Most Popular

Why pm modi has staked claim for a fourth term so early in his third, 253788% —that’s no typo, it’s how much india’s petroleum exports to europe have risen since 2018, ayurveda to aurobindo, book launch uses ‘u-turn theory’ to critique western appropriation.

Required fields are marked *

Copyright © 2024 Printline Media Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved.

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy

The return of the enemy: Putin’s war on Ukraine and a cognitive blockage in Western security policy

Subscribe to the center on the united states and europe update, constanze stelzenmüller constanze stelzenmüller director - center on the united states and europe , senior fellow - foreign policy , center on the united states and europe , fritz stern chair on germany and trans-atlantic relations.

August 2023

• 39 min read

This is a translated, expanded, and updated version of an essay that appeared in the German magazine Kursbuch in June 2023. This piece is part of a series of policy analyses entitled “ The Talbott Papers on Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine ,” named in honor of American statesman and former Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott. Brookings is grateful to Trustee Phil Knight for his generous support of the Brookings Foreign Policy program.

Eighteen months after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of his country’s sovereign neighbor on February 24, 2022, the question of how this war ends appears as open as ever. Ukraine has put up a heroic resistance to the invaders. The West, under U.S. leadership, and with huge financial and material outlays on both sides of the Atlantic, has helped. Kyiv’s counteroffensive is producing modest successes. But it is equally clear that it is taking a terrible toll — on Ukraine’s armed forces, on its citizens, and on its supporters worldwide. Russia, too, is taking heavy losses, has failed to reach key goals, and is arguably running out of options; the brief mutiny of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has revealed startling vulnerabilities in the top echelons of the Kremlin, including of Putin himself. 1 Still, Moscow continues its barbaric, indiscriminate attacks against Ukraine’s troops, its people, its cultural heritage sites, and the infrastructure of its economy.

Is it time — as critics continue to argue — to seek a compromise solution instead of further arms deliveries in order to prevent further bloodshed or a disintegration of the Western coalition? 2 Might it even be imperative for Ukraine to renounce regaining its entire territory in order to avoid defeat, the expansion of the war to neighboring states, a nuclear escalation by the Kremlin, or starvation in the world’s poorest countries? Certainly, Vladimir Putin appears to be calculating that time is on his side. “Far from seeking an off-ramp,” Alexander Gabuev writes, “Vladimir Putin is preparing for an even bigger war.” 3

Such a compromise peace would demand a near-superhuman degree of pragmatism and self-denial from the Ukrainians, who are victims of a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and who live under almost continuous Russian bombardment. The critics’ fears are nonetheless worthy of careful consideration because they are realistic. They are heightened by the visible fact of Western governments struggling with numerous other disruptive challenges, as well as the prospect of a string of elections in key states, from Poland in October 2023 to the United States in November 2024; all of which appear to be empowering the extreme right, or at least driving up the price of voter consent. Notably, opposition against U.S. support for Ukraine is rising in the ranks of Republican presidential candidates and among their voters as the election campaign takes off. 4 Responsible policymakers must acknowledge these constraints and weigh the costs and risks of all options.

Putin’s Russia: Take it literally and seriously

And yet the calls for negotiation elide a central question: What if Putin’s system and the Russian president himself are unwilling — even unable — to reach such a compromise? The distinguished German historian of Eastern Europe Karl Schlögel has described Putinism succinctly: “a violence-based order following on the demise of a continental empire and a system of state socialism” rooted in a “Soviet-Stalinist DNA … It includes the targeted killing of political opponents, commonplace violence in prisons and camps, impunity for crimes, arbitrariness, conspiracy myths, the notion of ‘enemies of the people.’” 5

In his now notorious historical essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” from the summer of 2021, Putin flatly — and not for the first time — denied Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent country; it was, he wrote, a component (together with Belarus) of a “single large nation, a triune nation.” 6 The Kremlin has repeatedly made it clear that only Ukraine’s complete surrender, including the relinquishment of its sovereignty, is acceptable as the basis for a peace agreement.

This maximalist intransigence is by no means limited to Ukraine. On December 17, 2021, the Kremlin sent two similar “draft treaties” to the White House and to NATO headquarters in Brussels which articulated the Kremlin’s goals for Europe with remarkable clarity. 7 The demands in the proposals — which were immediately dismissed by their recipients — included not just a veto on Ukrainian membership in the alliance but a revision of the Euro-Atlantic security acquis of the post-Cold War period on enlargement, basing, deployments, exercises, and cooperation with partners. They would have severely limited U.S. freedom of movement in Europe (with no concomitant limitations on Russia), reversed 25 years of Central and Eastern European integration into NATO and the European Union, ended the right of non-members to choose their own alliances, and re-established a Russian sphere of influence on the continent. 8 The coup de grâce was the final stipulation (Art. 7) of the draft U.S.-Russia treaty, that all nuclear weapons should be returned to their national territories: it would have meant the end of the U.S. nuclear umbrella over Europe and thus quite possibly of the alliance itself.

As my Brookings colleagues Fiona Hill and Angela Stent have warned: “This war is about more than Ukraine. … Ukrainians and their supporters understand that in the event of a Russian victory, Putin’s expansionism would not end at the Ukrainian border. The Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and many other states that were once part of the Russian empire would be at risk of attack or overthrow from within.” 9

Konrad Schuller, the Eastern Europe correspondent of the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, adds that the proponents of negotiations misjudge the categorical nature of this hostility: “In the case of total enmity, compromise never serves anything but a tactical pause.” This approach, he writes, has “deep roots in the Soviet Union,” and has been demonstrated time and again by Putin, as in the systematic violation of the Minsk agreements from the outset. 10

It appears Putin must be taken — like Donald Trump — literally and seriously .

It appears Putin must be taken — like Donald Trump — literally and seriously . That, in turn, requires confronting something else: the return of the category of the enemy to security policy.

1989: The end of enmity

The key theorist of this concept in the 20th century was Carl Schmitt, a fierce critic of liberal modernity, parliamentary democracy, and political pluralism; also an ardent antisemite. Despite his refusal to distance himself from his role as “crown jurist of the Third Reich,” his thought has unleashed what Jan-Werner Müller described as a “great and lasting intellectual fallout” for debates about political geostrategy to this day — not only in the West, but also in Russia and China. 11 For Schmitt, the concept of the enemy is the essence of the political: “The political enemy is … the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible.” 12 Enmity is not meant here in a metaphorical sense: “The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing. War follows from enmity. War is the existential negation of the enemy.” 13 Schmitt distinguishes here between “real” and “absolute” enemies: the former are capable of a territorial reconciliation of interests; the latter are incapable of this because of the ideological nature of their antagonism. 14

During the Cold War, much of the world was divided into camps of friend and foe, some of which were separated by genuine fortified borders such as the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. The West’s adversary was the Soviet Union, a rival superpower with a totalitarian ideology and a “settled and implacable hostility,” together with the Warsaw Pact. 15 In the words of John Lewis Gaddis, Western leaders envisaged a postwar European security order “that assumed the possibility of compatible interests, even among incompatible systems” — whereas Josef Stalin’s goal was “the eventual Soviet domination of Europe,” and it “assumed no such thing.” 16 The states of the West, on the other hand, as former French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian noted in 2016, no longer defined their national identity after 1945 in opposition to a “demonized Other.” 17

It seemed that the phenomenon of the enemy in international relations had ended up on the garbage heap of history.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States was left as the only superpower, with no rival far and wide. Its hegemonic status was also reflected in political theory: the so-called theory of convergence, according to which the rest of the world would gradually align itself with the Western model of free-market democracy. (Ironically, the notion of convergence originated in a famous essay by the Russian physicist and human rights defender Andrei Sakharov, whose 1968 essay “Thoughts on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom” posited that the political systems of the West and the Soviet bloc would converge as their relations thawed. 18 ) Thomas Wright has pointed out that “the notion of convergence pervaded the three post-Cold War U.S. administrations. It was an explicit goal of their strategy and defined the parameters of it.” 19

The convergence thesis found its classic expression in a 1990 address to Congress by then-President George H.W. Bush:

“Out of these troubled times … a new world order … can emerge: a new era — freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.” 20

History, as we know, has taken a somewhat different course since then. Nonetheless, there was remarkable progress in the decade that followed, which initially seemed to confirm the hope for convergence. The bipolar order of the Cold War reconstituted itself as an “aspiring global commonwealth that enlarged NATO and transformed the United Nations, the [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the EU.” 21 Not only that, the democratic transformation of almost the entire Warsaw Pact found imitators around the world; civil society movements overthrew authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It seemed that the phenomenon of the enemy in international relations had ended up on the garbage heap of history.

The key proponents of this thesis were the liberal political theorists. Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay “The End of History” — arguably the most influential articulation of the theory of liberal entropy — postulated outright that the category of the enemy state, or more precisely, the enemy state with an anti-Western ideology, was doomed to become an anachronism. “The passing of Marxism-Leninism first from China and then from the Soviet Union will mean its death as a living ideology of world historical significance … And the death of this ideology means … the diminution of the likelihood of large-scale conflict between states.” Fukuyama hastened to add that terrorism and wars of national liberation would continue, but “large-scale conflict must involve large states still caught in the grip of history, and they are what appear to be passing from the scene.” 22

As late as 2011, the most persistent proponent of the liberal convergence thesis, G. John Ikenberry, inveighed against the “panicked narrative” of the rise of illiberal, authoritarian powers: “China and other emerging great powers do not want to contest the basic rules and principles of the liberal international order; they wish to gain more authority and leadership within it. Indeed, today’s power transition represents not the defeat of the liberal order but its ultimate ascendance.” 23

The country that most enthusiastically embraced the narrative of the end of history, the victory of the West through diplomacy and democratic transformation, and the irresistible global spread of a rules-based world order, was reunified Germany. In 2019, the diplomat Thomas Bagger, then head of the planning staff at the German Foreign Office, described Berlin’s interpretation of the Zeitenwende of 1989 with gentle but unmistakable irony:

“Toward the end of a century marked by having been on the wrong side of history twice, Germany finally found itself on the right side. What had looked impossible, even unthinkable, for decades suddenly seemed to be not just real, but indeed inevitable. The rapid transformation of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe into parliamentary democracies and market economies was taken as empirical proof of Fukuyama’s bold headline. … Best of all, while Germany would still have to transform its new regions in the East, the former GDR, the country in a broader sense had already arrived at its historical destination: it was a stable parliamentary democracy, with its own well-tested and respected social market economy. While many other countries around the globe would have to transform, Germany could remain as is, waiting for the others to gradually adhere to its model. It was just a matter of time.” 24

Thirty years after reunification, the Germans’ remarkably complacent interpretation of the events of 1989 would become a stubborn cognitive blockage against perceiving and adapting to another, much darker period of climate change in international relations and the global security order.

In the United States, however, the representatives of the realist school of international relations viewed this liberal narrative of a linear arc of history with the same skepticism they harbored for international institutions, international law, and the notion of a liberal world order in general. Realist theorists such as Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt argued that competition was the main driver of the international system. But because realists consider interests to be far more important than ideologies, they are also disinclined to consider a rival state or even an adversary an “enemy” in the Schmittian sense. The competitor’s interests are simply different; this also makes it easier to negotiate with them, to come to a compromise, or even to accept their demand for a sphere of influence. 25 This rather relaxed — and quite condescending — view of the phenomenon of interstate competition was doubtless rooted in the fact that until recently the United States had no plausible peer rival. China’s rise has noticeably changed the realists’ tone.

A third school — the constructivists — took exception to the realists’ refusal to acknowledge identity and ideas as key factors in the behavior of states. And it was the constructivist Alexander Wendt who, a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, addressed the problem of the enemy head-on. He distinguished between Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian orders — based respectively on enmity, rivalry, and friendship. 26 Explicitly citing Schmitt, Wendt defined the difference between enemy and rival: “An enemy does not recognize the right of the Self to exist as a free subject at all … A rival, in contrast, is thought to recognize the Self’s right to life and liberty.” He adds: “Violence between enemies has no internal limits. … Violence between rivals, in contrast, is self-limiting, constrained by recognition of each other’s right to exist.” 27 Wendt cites post-Cold War conflicts occurring between “Palestinian and Israeli fundamentalists” and in Northern Ireland, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda as examples of hostility. All of these examples, however, are of internal or highly localized conflicts.

At the end of the first Bush presidency (1989-93) and then under his successor Bill Clinton (1993-2001), the United Nations sent peacekeepers to Cambodia and Rwanda, and NATO intervened in the Balkans with combat troops for the first time since its founding. Justifications for sending troops included the need to prevent regional destabilization, to end a humanitarian disaster, or the violation of basic principles of international law such as the prohibition of genocide. Leading Western states had patronage relationships with some of the conflict actors (France-Rwanda; France/U.K.-Serbia; Germany-Croatia), but they never went so far as to consider their clients’ enemies as their own. Meanwhile, relations among the great powers were for the most part stable and constructive. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and U.S. President Clinton clashed over NATO’s air war against Serbia. Otherwise, however, they largely cooperated with each other; Clinton paved the way for China to join the World Trade Organization.

2001: Terrorists, the West’s new enemy

It was the rise of radical Islamist terrorism, al-Qaida’s attacks on America on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent “Global War on Terror” with which the category of the enemy as the enemy of the West returned to trans-Atlantic strategic discourse. The neoconservative strategists of President George W. Bush (2001-2009) were convinced that the terrorists and their state sponsors had to be utterly defeated; they put this conviction into practice by driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan and invading Iraq. Their highly controversial formulas, such as the “axis of evil” or “Islamofascism,” were reminiscent of the “absolute enemy” in Schmitt’s “Theory of the Partisan . ” 28 What distinguished the neoconservatives from the Schmittians, however, was the fact that they were moral universalists and, in the majority, convinced advocates of a democratic transformation of the Middle East. On this issue, they were in broad agreement with the liberal internationalists.

The Islamist enemy, it was hoped, would also be transformed by the pull of freedom and democracy. As my colleague Robert Kagan wrote in 2008: “The best [option] may be to hasten the process of modernization in the Islamic world. More modernization, more globalization, faster.” 29 The great powers of Russia and China would — or so it was assumed — share the task of combating terrorism with the West. For the rest, the great powers would — as the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy put it — “compete in peace.” 30 In 2005, Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said that once China became a “responsible stakeholder” in the U.S.-led world order, all differences could be settled in light of shared interests. 31

A decade later, Le Drian identified the Islamic State group (IS) as France’s “current enemy.” 32 But he simultaneously introduced a distinction that was as precise as it was careful: for France, he explained, IS was an ennemi conjoncturel , an enemy whose status was contingent, depending on the current threat it posed. France, on the other hand, is an ennemi structurel for IS, based on an “apocalyptic, totalitarian, and eliminatory vision of this combat … Our deeds are of little importance from this point of view. We are targeted above all for what we are, and for what we represent.” 33 We will have to come back to this distinction.

2008-present: The pulverization of peaceful convergence

The presidency of Barack Obama (2009-2016) was the last in the post-Cold War era to spell out its national security strategy within the paradigm of peaceful convergence. Obama, however, viewed the interventionism of his predecessors with skepticism. He understood that competition was rising globally, but he was determined not to let that fact define his administration. 34

When Obama took office in 2009, Dmitry Medvedev was his counterpart in the Kremlin. But the power center was Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who had served once before as prime minister (1999-2000) and as president (2000-2008). Putin had triggered a sharp revisionist turn in Russian foreign policy in 1999 with the bloody Chechen war. In February 2007, he challenged the West in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. 35 In August 2008, the Kremlin provoked Georgia into a week-long shooting war as punishment for its aspirations to become a NATO member. Obama nevertheless offered Russia a “reset”; it produced the New START Treaty on strategic arms reduction and greater Russian cooperation on Afghanistan and Iran.

In 2012, Putin again assumed the Russian presidency. Yet even as Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and sent proxy troops into eastern Ukraine, Obama — supported by German Chancellor Angela Merkel — resisted pressure from Congress and his own administration to send lethal weapons to Kyiv. When Putin intervened in Syria in 2015 in favor of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad (triggering Germany’s refugee crisis), the United States also remained reluctant to intervene. Obama believed that the Europeans should take more responsibility for their own security; for him, the most important American security interests lay elsewhere, in Asia.

But China had also become much more power-conscious, both in its own neighborhood and in international institutions. The Obama administration initially took a wait-and-see approach; then it tried to change course with the “pivot to Asia” — with limited success. Derek Chollet, who had served as a senior Pentagon official in the administration, described U.S.-China relations as “increasingly cooperative on select issues, [but] rooted in competition and distrust.” 36 Few people, however, would have been less inclined to view a challenging great power like Russia or a rising rival like China as an enemy than the cerebral Obama; indeed, he notoriously dismissed Russia as a “regional power.”

Donald Trump’s term in office did not end the era of friendly convergence — that had already been ‘pulverized’ by the global financial crisis, the failure of the Arab Spring, Russia and China’s increasing challenge to the Western-led liberal world order, and the global rise of populism.

Donald Trump’s term in office (2017-2021) did not end the era of friendly convergence — that had already been “pulverized” by the global financial crisis, the failure of the Arab Spring, Russia and China’s increasing challenge to the Western-led liberal world order, and the global rise of populism. 37 But it became the scene of a bizarre power struggle in U.S. security policy between Republican traditionalists and the president. The former sought to articulate a new paradigm of global great power competition with the 2017 National Security Strategy. The document referred to Russia and China as “revisionist powers”; however, it simultaneously emphasized the importance of democracy, values, and allies. 38 This restrained intonation of systemic rivalry enjoyed bipartisan consensus. It found an increasing echo in Europe as well — such as in the European Union’s 2019 China Strategy, with its description of the emerging great power as a “partner, competitor, and strategic rival.” 39

The commander-in-chief’s political instincts, as it happened, were diametrically opposed to those of his advisers. The president had nothing but contempt for institutions, rules, allies, and especially NATO and the EU; he admired authoritarian leaders like Putin all the more submissively. In all this, Trump was (and is) neither a strategist nor an ideologue, but a transactional “America First” nationalist in a zero-sum world — a theory of American power that an anonymous senior official described as a “no friends, no enemies” policy. 40 Trump’s attacks on the rules-based world order were ultimately unsuccessful, as were his attempts to prevent his successor from winning the election. Nor did he manage to stop the U.S. government from providing Ukraine with lethal assistance, increasing sanctions on Russia, and strengthening the American military presence in Europe. 41

The lasting damage done by Trump’s tenure, however, was and is the normalization of ethno-nationalism, open contempt for democracy, and violence in the U.S. conservative camp. The enemy of the right-wing of the GOP (as is the case with other radical populists) is none other than liberal modernity itself. The Economist reported from a meeting of the hard-right Conservative Political Action Conference: “the movement’s goal is the utter destruction of the enemy.” 42

Joe Biden assumed the presidency of a politically and socially deeply divided country in January 2021, in the midst of a historic pandemic that by today’s count has claimed the lives of nearly seven million people worldwide and has shed an unsparing light on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the international order and Western democracies. 43 An administration strategy paper from March of that year described Russia as a disruptor (“determined to enhance its global influence and play a disruptive role on the world stage”) and China as a potential peer opponent (“the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system”). 44

2022: The return of the great power enemy

Only eleven months later, Putin invaded Ukraine; shortly before, Moscow and Beijing had sworn a “friendship” with “no limits.” 45 In October 2022, the administration’s National Security Strategy stated succinctly: “The world is now at an inflection point. This decade will be decisive, in setting the terms of our competition with the [People’s Republic of China], managing the acute threat posed by Russia, and in our efforts to deal with shared challenges, particularly climate change, pandemics, and economic turbulence.” 46 But in the summer of 2023, fears of a U.S.-China war continue to haunt Western capitals; Russia shows no signs that it might be willing to relent.

The free democracies must now understand that they are dealing with a phenomenon they had believed to be historically obsolete: state rivals who see them as ideological enemies. Specifically, “absolute” enemies as defined by Schmitt, or ennemis structurels, as Le Drian put it. Or — to use a more old-fashioned term — mortal enemies. Whether the leadership in Beijing perceives the nations of the West in this sense can be left open here — but in the case of Putin and his regime, the case is clear. Putin’s frequent characterization of the Kyiv leadership as “Nazis,” the tirades with which Putin rails against a “corrupt” Ukraine and a “decadent” West and threatens to “cleanse” “filth and traitors” in his own population, the threats of nuclear Armageddon — these linguistic tropes are familiar from the history of 20th-century genocides. 47

Conceivably, in the case of Putin himself, there is a personal psychopathology at play. Equally possibly, it is — as Fiona Hill argues — simply a cynical terror strategy designed to paralyze the resistance of Ukraine and the West. 48 Perhaps Putin is convinced that he can win this way; perhaps he feels compelled to articulate his invasion as a life-or-death struggle because his power and his life depend on not losing? In any case, the facts are that this unhinged language is amplified daily in the most garish colors by members of the Kremlin leadership as well as Russia’s state-controlled media, that it is taken at face value by much of the Russian population, and that it is implemented in brutal and sadistic ways by Putin’s armed forces. In this respect, Putin’s publicly staged hostility has long since developed a political life of its own. “If anything,” writes Tatiana Stanovaya in a compelling analysis of the hardening mood of Russia’s next-generation security elites, “the country is becoming more committed to the fight … No one is seriously considering or discussing a diplomatic end to the war: a notion that looks to many high-profile Russians like a personal threat, given all the war crimes that their country has committed and the responsibility that the entire elite now bears for the carnage in Ukraine.” 49

Help Ukraine win, strengthen Europe’s defenses, and avoid the mirroring trap

So how should the West grapple with this dilemma? Peace for Ukraine must at some point involve negotiations with Russia. But given the Kremlin’s implacable attitude, the burden of proof for the credibility of its negotiating offers would be extremely high. An armistice based on a freezing of the status quo in the form of continued Russian occupation of Crimea and the Donbas would reward Putin’s aggression and merely pause hostilities. The fact that the aggressor’s identity and the extent of his war crimes are beyond legal doubt will weigh heavily on any negotiations; an end to the fighting without some form of accountability, atonement, and reparations is hard to imagine. Diplomacy, in other words, would have to be very largely on Kyiv’s terms. That does not necessarily presuppose a Russian military defeat or a Ukrainian military victory. Conceivably, Russia could be forced to conclude that the price of pursuing Ukraine’s subjugation is unsustainably high by, for example, losing the support of a key non-Western power like China, or if the so-called Global South turned away from it. But as long as neither of those scenarios is within reach, helping Ukraine means helping it win on the battlefield. 50

Given the risk that an end to the war becomes an interregnum between wars, only the strongest guarantees can satisfy Ukraine’s security interests, and indeed those of the Western alliance.

Would that lead Russia to stop seeing it, and the West, as enemies? Certainly, Germany only embarked on the road to atonement after utter defeat, capitulation, and occupation — a scenario that seems unimaginable for Russia in this conflict. Given the risk that an end to the war becomes an interregnum between wars, only the strongest guarantees — a clear, constructive, and hopefully short path to NATO and EU membership — can satisfy Ukraine’s security interests, and indeed those of the Western alliance. The EU has accelerated membership talks, and the European Council is expected to kick off accession negotiations with Ukraine in December, a process that my Brookings colleague Carlo Bastasin notes comes with “huge political, financial, and institutional implications.” 51 Managing it carefully is all the more crucial because NATO member states were unable to agree on accelerating Kyiv’s NATO accession at the Vilnius summit in July; the question will unquestionably return with full force at the alliance’s 75th-anniversary summit in Washington, DC in July 2024.

Meanwhile, NATO, as well as the European Union, will have to continue to radically rethink their security provisions and address their huge deficits in deterrence and defense. Given the evolving U.S. presidential election campaign, Europeans especially will have to do more (much more) to defend themselves. As long as Russia is internally totalitarian and externally neo-imperial, Europe’s security can only be defined against Moscow.

Finally, as Le Drian put it succinctly in his 2016 essay: we must not fall into the intellectual trap of mirroring. This risk is not trivial, as was demonstrated by the attempts of Justice Department officials under the Bush administration after the September 11 attacks to justify “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as waterboarding by invoking a quasi-unlimited executive prerogative. 52 The current debate on how to deal with China’s increasingly assertive global stance also has hysterical overtones, even if the concern itself is justified. And, yes, there is a very real danger of subjecting those who leave authoritarian regimes to blanket suspicion, racism, and dehumanization.

The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. When you gaze long into the abyss for a long time, the abyss also gazes into you.” 53 In an age of what a recent U.K. strategy paper calls accelerated, constant, and dynamic systemic competition and faced with authoritarian great powers who think of us as the absolute enemy, that warning is especially pertinent. 54

Related Content

Michael E. O’Hanlon, Constanze Stelzenmüller, David Wessel

July 10, 2023

Constanze Stelzenmüller

June 8, 2023

• Lawrence Freedman, “Putin is running out of options in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs , July 25, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/putin-running-out-options-ukraine .
• Jürgen Habermas, “A Plea for Negotiations,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 14, 2023, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/projekte/artikel/kultur/juergen-habermas-ukraine-sz-negotiations-e480179/?reduced=true ; Alice Schwarzer and Sarah Wagenknecht, “Manifest für Frieden” [Manifesto for Peace], petition, Change.org, February 10, 2023, https://www.change.org/p/manifest-f%C3%BCr-frieden ; Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, “The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs , April 13, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-richard-haass-west-battlefield-negotiations .
• Alexander Gabuev, “Putin is looking for a bigger war, not an off-ramp, in Ukraine,” Financial Times , July 30, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/861a8955-924e-4d3e-8c59-73a13403e191 .
• William A. Galston, “Republicans are turning against aid to Ukraine,” The Brookings Institution, August 8, 2023, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/republicans-are-turning-against-aid-to-ukraine/ .
• Claudia von Salzen, “Historiker Schlögel zum Ukrainekrieg: ‘Der Ruf nach Verhandlungen zeugt von völliger Unkenntnis der Lage’” [Historian Schlögel on the war in Ukraine: ‘The Call for Negotiations Testifies to Complete Ignorance of the Situation’], Tagesspiegel , January 11, 2023, https://www.tagesspiegel.de/internationales/karl-schlogel-zum-ukrainekrieg-der-ruf-nach-verhandlungen-hat-etwas-mit-volliger-unkenntnis-der-lage-zu-tun-9149778.html .
• Vladimir Putin, “Article by Vladimir Putin ‘On the historical unity of Ukrainians and Russians,’” Office of the President of Russia, July 12, 2021, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 .
• “Press release on Russian draft documents on legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO,” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, December 17, 2021, https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1790809/ .
• William Alberque, “Russia’s new draft treaties: like 2009, but worse,” (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies), January 25, 2022, https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2022/01/russias-new-draft-treaties-like-2009-but-worse ; Steven Pifer, “Russia’s draft agreements with NATO and the United States: intended for rejection?”, The Brookings Institution, December 21, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/russias-draft-agreements-with-nato-and-the-united-states-intended-for-rejection/ .
• Fiona Hill and Angela Stent, “The Kremlin’s Grand Delusions,” Foreign Affairs, February 15, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/kremlins-grand-delusions .
• Konrad Schuller, “Frieden mit dem Todfeind” [Peace with the mortal enemy], Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 7, 2022, https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/schwarzer-und-habermas-zum-ukraine-krieg-frieden-mit-dem-todfeind-18010760.html . 
• Jan-Werner Müller, A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 1.
• Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 27. 
• Carl Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan, trans. G.L. Ulmen (New York:  Telos Press Publishing, 2007), 85-95.
• Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 119.
• John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Allen Lane, 2005), 27.
• Jean-Yves Le Drian, Qui est l’ennemi? [Who is the enemy?] (Paris: Le Cerf, 2016), 19.
• Andrei Sakharov, “Thoughts on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom,” The New York Times, July 22, 1968, https://www.sakharov.space//lib/thoughts-on-peace-progress-and-intellectual-freedom .
• Thomas J. Wright, All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the 21st Century and The Future of American Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 8.
• George H.W. Bush, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Deficit,” (speech, Washington, DC, September 11, 1990), https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-congress-the-persian-gulf-crisis-and-the-federal-budget . 
• Robert D. Blackwill and Thomas Wright, “The End of World Order and American Foreign Policy,” (Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, May 2020), 6, https://www.cfr.org/report/end-world-order-and-american-foreign-policy . 
• Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?,” The National Interest , no. 16 (Summer 1989), 18.
• G. John Ikenberry, “The Future of the Liberal World Order: Internationalism After America,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 3 (May/June 2011), 57, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/future-liberal-world-order . 
• Thomas Bagger, “The World According to Germany: Reassessing 1989,” The Washington Quarterly 41, no. 4 (2018), 54, https://www.atlantik-bruecke.org/the-world-according-to-germany-reassessing-1989/ . 
• See, for example: John Mearsheimer, “Playing With Fire in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs , August 17, 2022, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/playing-fire-ukraine ; Stephen M. Walt, “The Conversation About Ukraine Is Cracking Apart,” Foreign Policy, February 28, 2023, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/28/the-conversation-about-ukraine-is-cracking-apart/ . 
• Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 260.
• Ibid., 261.
• Carl Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan, 91.
• Robert Kagan, “End of Dreams, Return of History,” in To Lead the World: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine, eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro (Oxford University Press, 2008), 36-59, 54.
• “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America , ” (Washington, DC: The White House, September 2002), https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/63562.pdf .
• Robert B. Zoellick, “Whither China: From Membership to Responsibility?”, (speech, New York, September 21, 2005), https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/d/former/zoellick/rem/53682.htm . 
• Jean-Yves Le Drian, Qui est l’ennemi? , 13.
• Thomas J. Wright, All Measures Short of War , 173.
• Vladimir Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy,” (speech, Munich, February 10, 2007), http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034 . 
• Derek Chollet, The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America’s Role in the World (New York: Perseus Books, 2016), 58.
• Thomas Wright, “The G20 Is Obsolete,” The Atlantic, July 11, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/g20-obsolete-trump-putin-russia-germany-france/533238/ . 
• “National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” (Washington, DC: The White House, December 18, 2017), https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf . 
• “Joint Communication to the European Parliament, the European Council and the Council: EU-China – A strategic outlook , ” (Strasbourg: European Commission, March 12, 2019), 1, https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2019-03/communication-eu-china-a-strategic-outlook.pdf .
• Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch,’” The Atlantic , June 11, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/a-senior-white-house-official-defines-the-trump-doctrine-were-america-bitch/562511/ . 
• Christina L. Arabia, Andrew S. Bowen, and Cory Welt, “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine,” (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, updated June 15, 2023), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040 ; Cory Welt et al., “U.S. Sanctions on Russia,” (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, updated January 17, 2020), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45415/9 ; Paul Belikin and Hibbah Kaileh, “The European Deterrence Initiative: A Budget Overview,” (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, updated June 16, 2020), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1106137.pdf . 
• “Donald Trump’s Hold on the Republican Party is Unquestionable,” The Economist , August 18, 2022, https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/08/18/donald-trumps-hold-on-the-republican-party-is-unquestionable .
• “WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard,” World Health Organization, https://covid19.who.int/ (accessed 5/1/2023).
• “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance,” (Washington, DC: The White House, March 2021), 8, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf . 
• “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development,” (joint statement, Beijing, February 4, 2022), http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770 .
• “National Security Strategy,” (Washington, DC: The White House, October 12, 2022), 12-13; https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf .
• See, for example, Vladimir Putin, “Valdai International Discussion Club Meeting,” (speech, Moscow, October 27, 2022), http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69695 . 
• Fiona Hill, “Freedom From Fear: A BBC Reith Lecture,” (speech, Washington, DC, December 21, 2022), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/freedom-from-fear/ . 
• Tatiana Stanovaya, “Putin’s Age of Chaos,” Foreign Affairs , August 8, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/vladimir-putin-age-chaos .
• For a useful summary of the arguments, see Timothy Ash et al., “How to end Russia’s war on Ukraine: Safeguarding Europe’s future, and the dangers of a false peace,” (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, June 2023), https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/2023-06-27-how-end-russias-war-ukraine-ash-et-al_0.pdf . See also the exchange organized by Samuel Charap, “Should Ukraine negotiate with Russia?,” Foreign Affairs, July 13, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/responses/should-america-push-ukraine-negotiate-russia-end-war . 
• Carlo Bastasin, “Want Ukraine in the EU? You’ll have to reform the EU, too,” (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, July 2023), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/want-ukraine-in-the-eu-youll-have-to-reform-the-eu-too/ .
• Philippe Sands, Torture Team: Deception, cruelty and the compromise of law (London: Allen Lane, 2008), 270.
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Beyond Good and Evil] (Leipzig: C. G. Naumann, 1886) Aphorism no. 146.
• “Integrated Review Refresh 2023: Responding to a more contested and volatile world,” (London: United Kingdom Government, March 2023), https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1145586/11857435_NS_IR_Refresh_2023_Supply_AllPages_Revision_7_WEB_PDF.pdf .

U.S. Foreign Policy

Russia Ukraine

Foreign Policy

Europe & Eurasia Russia Ukraine

Center on the United States and Europe

Online Only

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT

The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C.

September 1, 2024

• Publications

Putin’s article: ‘On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians’

12 July 2021 saw the publication of an article by President Vladimir Putin, entitled ‘On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians’, which had been announced on 30 June 2021 during the President’s Direct Line public conference with citizens. The text was published on the President’s official website kremlin.ru (in two languages: Russian and Ukrainian).

The content of the article, which focuses on analysing the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations, is dominated by the claim that Ukrainians are an ancient, inseparable part of the ‘triune Russian nation’. This community is based on a common history spanning one thousand years, the language, the ‘Russian’ ethnic identity, the shared cultural sphere and the Orthodox religion. Their bond with the Russian state is special and organic; it guarantees Ukraine’s development, and any attempts to sever or weaken this bond (which could only be inspired by external actors) will inevitably result in the collapse of Ukrainian statehood.

The most important points regarding the history of bilateral relations include the following:

-         There are no historical arguments to justify the claim that a separate Ukrainian nation existed prior to the Soviet period: the proclamation of the Ukrainian nation was merely the result of the Austro-Hungarian Empire pursuing its great-power interests. Following World War I, having severed its bond with Russia, the Ukrainian state was short-lived, which resulted from “ceding full control of Ukraine to external forces” (first Germany, then Poland); all those who have recently surrendered control of the country to “external forces” should remember this . The Malorussian and Ukrainian culture flourished due to the policy pursued by the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Empire (in relation to the latter, Putin mentions the policy of korenizatsiya , and mistakenly claims that it was continued into the 1930s); it was only Soviet national policy that created a basis for distinguishing between the three separate nations – Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian.

-         Russia views the existence of the Ukrainian nation “with respect”. However, present-day Ukraine owes its territorial form to the Soviet period. It benefitted from “regaining” ancient Russian lands at the expense of Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia, and obtained territories which had been taken away from “historical Russia”. Consequently, if Ukraine is determined to severe   its friendly relations with Russia, i.e. the USSR’s heir, it should return to its 1922 borders . Putin also took the opportunity to criticise the policy pursued by the Bolsheviks; he accused them of “robbing” Russia of the territories that were awarded to Ukraine.

-         Russia did a great deal to help the Ukrainian state thrive post-1991; Putin mentioned the significant economic assistance Russia offered to Kyiv. The rupture of the ties between the two countries has resulted in Ukraine’s economic degradation: at present Ukraine is “ Europe’s poorest country” . The anti-Russian Ukrainian authorities have “wasted and frittered away the achievements of many generations”, even while the two nations still have “great affection” for each other.

-         Putin also offered harsh criticism of the policies pursued by the authorities in Kyiv, both towards Russia and domestically, and of the local oligarchs who plunder the Ukrainian state. Ukraine is affected by a persistent weakness of its state institutions and has become “a willing hostage to someone else’s geopolitical will” . In addition, Putin accused Kyiv of mythologising and rewriting history – a routine allegation against those neighbouring states which   work to debunk Russian historical propaganda .   In Putin’s words, “the common tragedy of collectivisation” back in the 1930s is falsely presented as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. As he pointed out, the Ukrainian elites wrongfully base   the country’s independence on a denial of its past. However, at the same time they   “conveniently” leave   out the aforementioned issue of the contemporary state’s borders.

-         Putin once again criticised the Kyiv government’s language policy and the law on indigenous peoples of Ukraine. According to his interpretation, “forced assimilation” of ethnic Russians is ongoing and an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is being formed. The consequences of this approach are   comparable to “the use of weapons of mass destruction” (sic!) against Russia. In addition, he criticised the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, seeing this as a blow to the spiritual unity of the two nations and a result of the secular authorities’ blatant interference in church life.

-         According to Putin, the West intends to transform Ukraine into an “anti-Russia”, an anti-Russian “springboard”, a barrier between Russia and Europe. This echoes   plans devised in the past by “Polish-Austrian ideologists” who intended to create “an anti-Moscow Rus”. This runs counter to the interests of the Ukrainian nation, which was exploited by Poland, Austria-Hungary and Nazi Germany in the past, and “cynically used” again in 2014. The “anti-Russia” project cultivates the image of an internal and external enemy , is leading to the militarisation of Ukraine (including the expansion of NATO’s infrastructure on its territory) and views it as a protectorate of the Western powers. This project thus denies Ukraine’s genuine sovereignty . The “millions of people” who reject this “anti-Russia” plan are viewed as Moscow’s agents, persecuted or even killed. Only those who hate Russia are considered “the right kind of patriots”. This means that Ukrainian statehood is being built on hate, and this is a very shaky foundation for sovereignty, burdened with a tremendous risk.

-         Putin reiterated some of his previously voiced arguments regarding the causes of Ukraine’s destabilisation post-2014 . The “anti-Russia” project has been rejected by millions of Ukrainians: Crimea has made its “historic choice”, and the population of the Donbas took up arms to prevent ethnic cleansing. He warned that “the followers of Bandera did not abandon their plans to crack down on Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk” and their crimes would be comparable to those perpetrated by the Nazis. As he said, “ They are biding their time. But their time will not come ”. Putin also claimed that “ Kyiv simply does not need Donbas ” because the local population will never accept the rules of the game imposed by the central government, and the implementation of the Minsk agreements would contradict the “anti-Russia” project. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky “lied” when he claimed   ahead of the presidential election that he would strive to achieve a peaceful solution to the Donbas problem;   instead, the situation has deteriorated further since then.

-         Moscow will never allow its “historical territories” and the people living there to be used against Russia . Those who undertake such an attempt will destroy their own country . Meanwhile, good-neighbourly cooperation is possible and desired; ideally it should be modelled on German-Austrian and American-Canadian relations, in which ethnically similar states that speak the same language are closely integrated while remaining sovereign.

-         In the text, Poland is presented as an empire competing with Russia, albeit a weaker one. Its policy towards Ukraine has always been based on the forced Polonisation and Catholicisation of the local population. Meanwhile, the incorporation of a portion of Ukraine into Russia in the 17th century was an act of democratic will on both sides. The further annexations of Polish lands (in the 18th century and later) are (as usual) presented as the process of Old Russian lands being regained and reunited.

• The article is another example of Putin’s revanchism. Although the anti-Ukrainian arguments presented in the text are not new, their more detailed form and appeals to a historical legacy are intended to reinforce and justify   the Kremlin’s message: Russia will not abandon its attempts to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence. The text contains a de facto threat that the 1991 Belovezha Accords (which recognised the inviolability of borders between the former Soviet republics) may be considered invalid should Ukraine fail to yield to Russia. Due to the present international situation, this threat should be viewed as an empty, ostentatious gesture confirming the increasingly ritual nature of Russian propaganda. However, it is evident that the Russian authorities are toughening up their narrative. On the one hand, this may suggest that the Kremlin feels frustrated with its limited impact on Ukrainian politics, and on the other, that plans have been made to step up the destabilisation of Ukraine in the coming months.
• Putin’s article reflects his attachment to Russia’s imperial history and its ‘history-making’ destiny to determine the fate of the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples. He reiterates, in an oversimplified manner, the basic assumptions of 19th-century official historiography of the Russian Empire. He also refers to conspiracy theories formulated by Russian far-right groups, claiming that the Ukrainian nation was a Polish (and later an Austro-Hungarian) anti-Russian political project. In order to prove his main argument, Putin passes over events which are inconvenient for Russia and presents many others in a biased or blatantly distorted manner. This falsified ‘common history’ is intended to legitimate Russia’s influence on Ukrainian society, in order to correct the mistakes made by the ‘puppet’ government in Kyiv .
• The clear threats aimed at Kyiv (suggesting that its anti-Russian policy is exposing Ukraine to the risk of losing its statehood) are mainly formulated with the Western audience in mind. This is being done in the context of the upcoming elections in Germany (in this sense, the text is a continuation of the conciliatory article Putin published on the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s aggression on 22 June) and Russia’s present relationship with the United States. One of Putin’s (rather unrealistic) goals is to discourage the new German government and the Biden administration from supporting the ‘hopeless’ case of defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity. This refers to the West’s position on the annexation of Crimea, military cooperation with Ukraine, and backing Ukraine’s aspirations to NATO membership. Putin sends a clear message to Western ‘hawks’ that Russia is determined to defend its interests in Ukraine – even at the expense of destroying Ukrainian statehood (or trimming its territory to a rump state). On the other hand,   pro-Russian groups in the Western establishment were offered a conciliatory argument, which accompanied the blackmail: Ukrainian-Russian relations can be built on similar foundations as   those of Germany & Austria and Canada & the US.
• Putin also targeted his message to   Ukraine’s leadership and society. The article   contains accusations that Zelensky and his team are serving foreign governments. It depicts a bright vision of the prosperity that could result from Ukraine’s integration with Russia, and condemns Ukrainian oligarchs for robbing the country. Accompanying threats to further   destabilise Ukraine, should it continue its course of Euro-Atlantic integration, include   a thinly-veiled warning that Moscow may resort to military measures. In the Kremlin’s logic, emphasising the ‘civilisational’ role of Orthodox Russia is intended to polarise and radicalise social groups in Ukraine by exploiting divisions about Ukrainian-Russian (Soviet) relations in the past. However, we should not expect this article to shift the views held by most Ukrainians, who now consider Russia as an unfriendly or hostile state. Attempts to undermine the feeling of national distinctiveness will likely be considered as manifestations of the Kremlin’s aggressive policy.
• Putin’s text is intended to demonstrate to Russian society that the Kremlin is determined to defend Russia’s national interests. Against the backdrop of social discontent over the increasing economic problems Russian society is facing, references to imperial resentments, the anti-Western mood and the image of the state as a ‘besieged fortress’ are all elements of the same strategic project. It boils down to building the regime’s legitimacy on its great-power legacy and bygone imperial splendour. In addition, the article contains guidelines for Russian officials   regarding the desirable political narrative. One should therefore expect this discourse within Russia’s ruling elite to intensify.

Do wysłuchania w serwisie Spotify

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

• Our network

The Sydney Morning Herald

• Russia-Ukraine war

This was published 2 years ago

Transcript of Vladimir Putin’s speech announcing ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine

The text below is a partial translation of a nationally televised address by russian president vladimir putin ahead of his country’s troops launching an offensive against ukraine., save articles for later.

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.

Russia cannot feel safe and develop, exist without the constant threat emanating from the territory of the modern Ukraine. Let me remind you that in 2000, 2005, we gave a military rebuff to terrorists in the Caucasus. We defended the integrity of our state, preserved Russia and, in 2014, we supported the people of Crimea and Sevastopol.

In 2015, the armed forces were used to put a reliable barrier to prevent the penetration of terrorists from Syria to Russia. There was no other way we could protect ourselves. The same thing is happening now.

You and I have simply not been given any other opportunity to protect Russia and our people, except the one we will have to us today. Circumstances require us to act resolutely and immediately. The People’s Republic of Donbas appealed to Russia for help.

In this regard, in accordance with Article 51, part seven of the UN Charter, with the approval of the Federation Council of Russia and pursuant to the Federal Assembly, on February 22 of this year, [we] ratified treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic.

I made a decision to conduct a special military operation. Its goal is to protect people who have been abused by the genocide of the Kyiv regime for eight years. And to this end, we will strive for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we hear more often lately from the West that documents signed by the Soviet totalitarian regime that fixed the results of the Second World War should not be implemented.

What can we respond to that?

The results of the Second World War, as well as the sacrifices made by our people on the altar of the victory of Nazism are sacred, but this does not contradict the high values of human rights and freedoms based on the realities that have developed during all post-war decades.

It also does not cancel the right of nations to self-determination enshrined in Article one of the UN Charter.

Let me remind you that not after the USSR was created, nor after the Second World War, no one asked people who lived in certain territories included in modern Ukraine how they themselves wanted to build their life. Our policy is based on freedom of choice for all to determine their own future and that of their children.

This partial transcript was translated from Russian by Washington Post journalist Mary Ilyushina. An official Russian version in English can be found here .

The Morn ing Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here .

• Vladimir Putin
• Putin's Russia

Most Viewed in World